Signs that could have saved Daniel

last year, Daniel Wilson took part in the Great North Run.

It was something the father-of-two from Barnsley had planned to do ever since he suffered skin cancer five years earlier. He wanted to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Little did Daniel and his family know that the cancer they thought had been successfully treated had, in fact, spread to his brain.

Shortly after the Great North Run, he collapsed and an eventual scan revealed five inoperable brain tumours. On Saturday, Daniel died aged 36.

Now his wife Suzanne wants to raise awareness not only among the public but amongst the medical profession of the link between skin cancer and developing brain tumours.

“People don’t realise that all it takes is for one cell to break off from the skin cancer and get into the body and it can reappear and there is nothing you can do about it. If you think your mole is changing, then you must get it checked out straight away.”

In the end, it was Suzanne who had to make Daniel an appointment to visit his GP after a mole on the back of his head started to change.

“Daniel used to shave his head and six years ago the mole on the back of his head started to bleed. He kept catching it, but like a typical man didn’t do anything about it,” says Suzanne.

“In the end, I made an appointment for him to go to the doctor and in February 2005 he had it removed.”

Tests revealed that Daniel was suffering from the skin cancer, malignant melanoma.

“We were really surprised. I was the one who used to use sun beds, not Daniel. He was always very careful in the sun.” He had to have a further operation to remove any tissue around the mole which might have been affected. He wasn’t given any chemo or radiotherapy.

“He used to joke that he looked like something from the film The Matrix as he looked like he’d been unplugged. We thought that would be it, but we were told there was a 50 per cent chance it could come back.

“We thought if it did come back it would be on his skin. He did have regular check-ups but everything seemed to be fine and we got back to normal.” Life was busy, Suzanne juggled her job as a journalist with bringing up Jack, now seven, who has autism and Christopher, two.

But in February last year Daniel started to feel unwell.

“They said he was borderline diabetic and that might explain it,” said Suzanne. “He was in training for the Great North Run at the time. He wanted to raise money for Cancer Research because he believed advances in cancer treatment had saved his life.”

But by August Daniel was feeling so poorly he was struggling to train properly.

“He still really wanted to do the run but he was complaining of pressure in his head. He couldn’t stand the noise of the children around him or be in the same room as people talking.”

Suzanne was worried the cancer had returned, and she started to research the subject.

But doctors kept telling her it was a migraine or a virus.

“ We went to a number of different doctors and even a different hospital and I kept asking for them to do a scan of his head as I had read that there was a link between skin cancer and brain tumours, but I kept being told I was wrong.” Then in December his personality started to change and then five days before Christmas he collapsed and was unable to move.

“I managed to get him to hospital. I thought they would say the same old thing and send us home again. I had been through it so many times. By the time we got to hospital Daniel didn’t recognise me. He was talking but gibberish was coming out.” This time, the hospital did agree to give Daniel a brain scan which revealed five tumours.

“It was five days before Christmas. At this point, my husband didn’t know me, I couldn’t talk to him. I was shell-shocked. I sat there watching someone who looked like my husband, but who wasn’t my husband. It was very frightening.”

For the last five months, Daniel’s condition gradually deteriorated and he moved back in with his parents where Suzanne could nurse him during the day and then go back to the children at night.

“It was very traumatic. Jack doesn’t like change and it was very hard to explain to him what was happening to his daddy. It has been a living nightmare.”

There was one brief highspot when the couple celebrated what Suzanne knew would be their last wedding anniversary on June 10.

“Daniel was too ill to leave his mum and dad’s but I contacted the White Hart at Penistone to ask if we could have their food to take away. Although this wasn’t something they would do ordinarily, when I explained the situation they said they would .

“When I went to pick it up, they said it was with the complements of the White Hart. It completely blew me away. When we had the meal Daniel was smiling. We were having such a terrible time that an act of such kindness really restored my faith in humanity.” Daniel sadly died last Saturday in his sleep with his mum and Suzanne at his side. Now she hopes that by telling Daniel’s story more people will get their moles checked out more quickly.

“If he had gone straight away then the cancer cells may not have had the chance to get into his body and he could have been with us today.”

Daniel Wilson’s funeral takes place on Thursday, August 11 at 1.30pm at St Thomas’s Church, Gawbar, Barnsley. Donations in lieu of flowers to Melanoma Research.

MALIGNANT MELANOMA

Malignant Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer. The incidence is increasing dramatically in the UK, in 2010 1 in 75 people developed the disease. It is the second commonest cause of death from cancer in the 15-30 year age group and is the 6th most common cancer overall in the UK. More women than men get melanoma. There is one main factor that increases the risk of developing melanoma – ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light comes from the sun or sunbeds. Risk factors related to sun exposure include: Moles, being very fair skinned and getting badly sunburnt.