Who knows when I would have found the tumour if I hadn’t lost so much weight

WHEN 27 stone Marc Young found himself unable to get down on to the floor to build bricks with his one-year-old granddaughter he realised that he had to take drastic action to lose weight.

And that ‘lightbulb moment’ saved his life. He joined Weight Watchers, lost four stone, and felt a lump on his neck. It was cancer of the tonsils.

“If I hadn’t lost the weight, I would never have felt the lump,” said Marc, who underwent major surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and has now been given the all clear.

“After all that I’ve been through, I cherish life and I’m making the most of every minute.

“I’m determined to reach my goal weight – I’ve lost more than nine stone now.”

IT service consultant Marc, 45, lives in Pinehurst, Swindon, with his wife Jenni. Their daughter Aileen, 23, mum to five-year-old Savannah, is one of their four grown-up children and lives with them.

“With day-to-day contact with Savannah since she was a baby, I’m really close to her, and do lots of fun stuff with her,” said Marc.

“But when I weighed 27 stone this was severely limited – I couldn’t even get down on the floor to build bricks with her.

“I was so unhappy with myself, I felt totally out of control. I knew I had to lose weight but I was so huge that it felt like an impossible task.”

Marc said that the weight had piled on gradually over the years.

“I was never that big when I was younger, but I’ve always worked in an office, had a sedentary lifestyle, and ate all the wrong things. I never gave a thought to my health,” he said.

“We were bringing up four children and there wasn’t a huge amount of money, so we ate what was cheap – and that was usually processed stuff – pies, burgers, oven chips, pizza, pasta, white bread. All the wrong things – we were making every single mistake in the book.”

He had tackled his weight once before, 13 years ago, when he reduced his then 24 stone bulk by three-and-a-half stone with Weight Watchers.

“Yes, I did lose some weight, but the trouble was I didn’t change my mindset or lifestyle,” Marc said.

“So when I stopped dieting my hard work went out of the window, and all the pounds went back on.”

Back in those days, bringing up a young family, Marc filled-up on unhealthy processed food, in huge portions.

A typical day’s menu might be a large bowl of cereal topped with two spoonfuls of sugar for breakfast, a baguette stuffed with filling and mayo and two packets of crisps for lunch, a Mars bar mid-afternoon, and then a huge plate of meat pie and oven chips for dinner.

“I ate so fast that I always had seconds,” Mark said. He would finish the day with a pre-bedtime snack of two slices of buttered toast topped with peanut butter.

“I’ve never drunk loads of beer or wine. It was just endless fatty, processed food that piled on the weight,” he said.

“Life was so busy, that I was able to ignore my weight problem by pushing it to the back of my mind.

“I have a wonderful wife, and lovely family, but I was so unhappy with myself. I couldn’t even get on the scales to find out my true weight, because the bathroom scales only go up to 20 stone.

“I was buying bigger and bigger clothes – nowhere in Swindon sold anything to fit me so I resorted to buying online, and I felt better about that because I didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of trying things on in shops and finding they didn’t fit.”

It wasn’t until granddaughter Savannah was a year old, and getting more mobile, that Marc realised he couldn’t go on as he was.

“She was gorgeous, and I wanted to have fun with her, but even simple things like changing her nappy or chasing after her were difficult,” Marc said.

“Jenni and the kids were very worried about me – I was really short-tempered with them too, which isn’t like me.”

In early 2013 Marc decided he couldn’t take any more, went to see his GP, and asked for help.

Marc was given two months’ of free NHS vouchers to attend Weight Watchers. With Jenni, who wanted to lose some weight too, he joined the Haydon Wick group.

“It really helped that Jenni and I were doing it together – we cleared the cupboards of all the rubbish food and worked together planning our meals,” Marc smiled.

“I lost 11 pounds in the first week – it was incredible – and I thought to myself, if I follow the Weight Watchers’ points plan I can do this, I can shed the weight.”

And follow the plan is exactly what he did, as well as getting lots of exercise.

He said: “Instead of flopping in front of the TV, I get out and walk our dog, Willow. I’ve got a step-counter app on my phone and try to do 10,000 steps each day.

"I walk up and down the platform while I’m waiting for the train to work, and at least twice a week I spend my lunch hour walking.”

Marc now weighs 17st 13lbs and is nine-and-a-half stone slimmer than four years ago, though he did “have a wobble” over Christmas, gaining half a stone.

“I had to strongly remind myself how much I want to do this, and reach my goal weight of 14 stone,” Marc said.

“I completely reject that old life, I’m never going back. I’ve set myself the target of losing another stone by Easter.”

Marc has certainly scaled some hurdles along the way, and the most challenging by far was being diagnosed with cancer two-and-a-half years ago.

He said: “I felt a swelling on the right hand side of my neck, and I just thought my glands were up. I’d been feeling under the weather.

“I think Jenni, who used to be a paramedic and is now a district nurse, was more concerned than she let on. I had lots of tests and everyone seemed pretty worried. When I got the actual cancer diagnosis my life came crashing down.”

But of one thing Marc is certain – losing weight saved his life.

“Who knows when I would have found the tumour if I hadn’t lost so much weight,” he said.

“It would probably have been too late.”

Marc received treatment at the head and neck cancer unit at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford. The tumour was on his tonsils and the size of a fist. He underwent a gruelling 17-hour operation to remove the tonsils, lymph glands in his neck, wisdom teeth and the soft palate at the back of the roof of his mouth.

He was in intensive care for three days and when he was stronger he began a course of 30 radiotherapy sessions, followed by chemotherapy.

“It was really unpleasant and tough, but Jenni and the family were amazing with running me backwards and forwards for my treatments,” Marc said.

“Eating and drinking were difficult. Because they removed my soft palate I had trouble with fluid coming back down my nose, so I had to change the way I ate, and lived on food supplement drinks for a while.

“I wouldn’t recommend it as a weight loss programme, but it worked for me!

“Things improved hugely in early 2015 when I had more surgery to close the gap in my soft palate using skin from my cheek. The surgeons and the NHS are incredible.

“I had to learn to speak properly again, and apart from sounding a little bit nasal, I’m okay now.”

He was off work for six months, during which time his employers, RM Education, based at Milton Park, Abingdon, paid his salary in full.

“They were brilliant - being able to pay the mortgage and bills was one less thing to worry about while I was having cancer treatment,” Marc said.

“The doctors were always confident I would be completely cured, and that it hadn’t spread.

“They are happy with me and the surgery and treatment has worked, but I do worry when I go back for my three-monthly check-ups, of course I do. They will discharge me after five years.

“There is absolutely no doubt that losing weight and finding the tumour saved my life. I’m absolutely convinced everything happens for a reason - I have turned my life round and I’m living it as well as possible.”

And Marc is living it to the full too. He has always enjoyed cycling, and one of his favourite pursuits is putting little Savannah in the child seat on his bike and accompanying Jenni and Aileen when they go horse-riding. Last summer, he and Jenni fulfilled a dream and took the Eurostar to Paris to see the final stages of the Tour de France.

They also took dancing lessons and for their 25th wedding anniversary they visited Venice, where they waltzed to an orchestra in St Mark’s Square.

Mark summed it all up: “I cherish life and all the small things more. I’m not rich, and I’d rather spend time with my family than have an expensive car. I am incredibly lucky.”