Soccer ball sized cancer removed from 21-year-old Gold Coast man Elliott Cox
THIS Gold Coast man was a semi-professional soccer player when doctors spotted the largest tumour they had ever seen. He would need treatment immediately — or die within days.
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ELLIOTT Cox was an 18-year-old semi professional footballer when he was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that would need to be treated in days or he would die.
Over the next three years he would continue to fight not only a Hodgkin’s lymphoma tumour the size of a soccer ball but also shingles, meningitis, a sweat gland infection and two collapsed lungs.
As the Gold Coast today marks Daffodil Day, with volunteers selling daffodils and pins across the city, Mr Cox recalled his remarkable story of survival.
It all started with the first diagnosis of his cancer and what would start, no doubt, the worst week of his mum’s life.
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“The tumour was the largest Gold Coast University Hospital had ever seen,” Mr Cox, now 21, recalled.
“It was about the size of an inflated soccer ball and the doctors basically said we have to start immediate chemo or I would be dead in a week.
“At the time my mum was in England burying her mum who had just passed away.
“She found out I had cancer on Monday and buried her mum on Tuesday.”
Doctors started Mr Cox on a treatment that is said to cure 95 per cent of patients. In the meantime, he developed shingles and meningitis in his eye, spine and brain, which he is still on medication for.
The chemo didn’t eradicate his tumour, but it did shrink his soccer ball to the size of a golf ball.
He then started two months of daily radiation before his next scan.
The scan found the cancer had moved into his lungs, which they then tried multiple forms of chemo to treat, unsuccessfully.
“I had 3-4 different types of chemo, they didn’t work, which was really devastating to hear because we thought that would be it,” he said.
“To be honest it was devastating when the first lot didn’t work.”
From there Mr Cox underwent stem cell treatment and aggressive chemo with the intent to completely clean his blood.
“I had 13 days of most intense chemotherapy they can give you,” he said.
“This chemotherapy cleans you out. Wipes out blood cells, destroys every fast producing cell in your body. No tastebuds, no hair, no immune system, nail follicles start rotting. Everything just stops.
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“Then after that they can put fresh blood back into you and bring it back to life.
“If they didn’t you’d be dead before you got to the car park.”
During this process Mr Cox was so frail he was in complete isolation, a week before Christmas.
His body broke out in a red raw sweat gland rash that baffled doctors and his body’s constant temperature was around 40 degrees Celsius.
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“I sat in isolation for days purely because everything was so painful,” Mr Cox said.
“I have some memory of my mum telling me to keep fighting.”
Then, days after doctors thought he was close to death, Mr Cox made a recovery.
He completed his stem cell treatment, started a new chemo that he describes as a “sniper” that only takes out the bad guys, as opposed to a regular chemo “bomb” that takes out good guys and bad guys.
There were more complications to come, including losing feeling in his left hand and another three months in hospital to operate on two half collapsed lungs, but the future is looking brighter.
“There will always be a chance it will come back but laughter is the best medicine,” Mr Cox said.
“Our whole family gets by on it.
“If you think about it in the severity that it is it’d drive you insane.”
Originally published as Soccer ball sized cancer removed from 21-year-old Gold Coast man Elliott Cox