My name's Martin and I was diagnosed with diffuse B-cell lymphoma in April 2016.
We first noticed a problem when I was on the holiday in the August of that year.
I started to have the odd extra cat nap in the afternoon which is a bit unusual for me.
This carried on into the October, November and December and I was still going to the doctor's
and they were still trying to find out what was wrong.
We really thought it was something to do with my nasal passages and an ear problem.
I was now under the ENT Specialists.
It just didn't make sense, any of it, and the fatigue started to get worse.
Christmas day I had a sleep upstairs and I've never done that before
and this just carried on right up until the time where I got diagnosed in the April.
Prior to that week I'd been to football matches, I'd driven back from places like Bournemouth
and had to stop and someone else had to take over the driving.
I'd been to Wembley to see a football match and couldn't walk along Wembley Way I was so tired.
It was becoming really obvious there was something major going on.
So when we had the word from the GPs, that they suspected I'd had the lymphoma or had the lymphoma,
it was a bit of a relief to be honest because we then had a reason to move forward and try and treat it.
During the treatment, the middle week was the worst week for me, when I really suffered with fatigue.
Again, I'd have to just lie down, not always sleep, again, but just lie down take the weight off my feet.
The difference between fatigue and tiredness in my opinion is remarkable.
Fatigue hits you like a steam train, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Tiredness creeps up on you, you can have a small sleep, a doze and you feel refreshed afterwards.
With fatigue it literally just takes you on and it just hammers you straight away.
I found my legs went to start with, I felt wobbly, I just had to lie down, sometimes not even to sleep,
but I just had to lie down. I just felt so tired.
I think one of the problems of lymphoma or chemotherapy is the fact that
you want to carry on as normal, but your body won't let you.
You can get depression, you can feel down, you can feel lots of different emotions.
Talking about that is the most important thing.
Try and just pace yourself. You won't be able to go to every party, you won't be able to go to every school event
but everyone there knows that you're going through it and everybody understands
and you just try and do what you can and you mustn't feel guilty for it.
You must just pace yourself and obviously store up energy.
If you know you're going somewhere at the weekend, get yourself some good sleep before you go,
take your weight off your feet a couple of days beforehand and store the energy up.
You can still carry on doing things, you just have to be a little bit ahead of the game as to how and when you do it.
The biggest help was talking to friends, family and especially employers, because you look normal --
you're having your treatment, you're having your chemotherapy, okay,
you might lose a bit of hair or you might lose a bit of weight,
but after a while people get used to that look and they forget about the tiredness
and the tiredness for me went on well over a year after I finished my chemotherapy.
I look normal, people thought I was normal, but I was really struggling.
It was like a swan on the top of the water with the legs paddling underneath.
It was shocking actually, to feel like that at times, but my personality is somebody that will be open about it,
talk about it, joke about it. Not everybody can do that. That works for me.
You have to find your own way of dealing with it and you have to speak to people because the more people know
and understand, the more they can help you and when you disappear for an hour's kip,
people just will understand and let you get on with it.
It soon goes away, it doesn't last forever, but if you manage it properly and you're upfront and honest about it,
I think you can really make a big difference to your treatment.
I think the biggest surprise to me was how long it's taken after chemotherapy to start to recover fully.
You finish your chemotherapy and you expect to get better quickly,
other people expect you to get better quickly and this can drag on for a year or two years.
You can still have the chemo legs, you can still feel tired, you can still have foggy brain
and that's been the biggest shock.
That's the bit other people don't see. They expect you to be back at work being normal,
out with the kids being normal, and sometimes you're just trying to fight it a little bit
and just trying to get on with your life.
But it does take time and you have to be patient and you have to give in to it,
you have to talk to people and you can't fight it. It will just happen.
So I'm now 18 months into remission.
If I can get to two years, they're now saying that that's really good
and the odds are starting to go into my favour.
I still get tired, I still get foggy at times, I still have to manage my time, but it is getting better.
I look to the future, I don't dwell on the past -- what's happened, has happened.
I've had to accept it, I've had the treatment and we will move forward
and fingers crossed I won't see it ever again.