I SPENT SIX YEARS BEING TREATED FOR CHILDHOOD LEUKAEMIA ONLY TO END UP BATTLING PTSD AT 16
The 21-year-old from Lurgan tells Stephanie Bell how he had to abandon plans to go to university, but counselling from Action Cancer helped get him back on the right track
Andrew Gamble doesn’t remember having cancer as a young child but he will never forget the emotional trauma that hit him when he was 16. Now 21 and running his own online marketing and web development business, the Co Armagh man spent three tough years in his late teens struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Now fully recovered thanks to counselling and support from the charity Action Cancer, for which he is an ambassador, Andrew’s inspirational story will strike a chord with the many local families who have had to deal with the distress of a cancer diagnosis.
Andrew, lives on the Banbridge Road in Lurgan with his parents Laura, a civil servant and dad Roy, a building contractor and his two sisters Carly and Claire. is sharing his experience as he helps to launch a new Action Cancer support group in his home town of Lurgan.
Despite being robbed of all of his well-laid plans to sit his GCSEs and A-levels at Lurgan College and then go on to university, Andrew says he regrets nothing — and in fact believes his journey through the trauma has changed him for the better.
Currently in his second year of an Open University degree course in information technology and computing, he is driven by a strong desire to give something back to the charity that was there for him.
Not only has he tirelessly raised funds for Action Cancer, but he is also now using his computing skills to devise a course to offer training for people to set up their own business.
Andrew was only two when he was diagnosed with leukaemia and spent six years undergoing treatment. His childhood was very much overshadowed by the illness, but as he grew up he appeared to be coping well.
Ironically, though, as his loved ones started to slowly heal from the emotional trauma they had been through watching him battle the disease as a young child, exactly the opposite was happening to Andrew.
“I only remember snippets of being ill,” he explains. “For example, I remember certain rooms in the hospital and some staff and I remember a room set out for school and then we were allowed playtime.
“And one weird enduring memory is the faint smell of burning toast in the ward.
“Also, when I was about five I took a turn for the worse and I remember my mum being really upset and I didn’t know why. Everyone around me in my family remembered it more than I did and it hit them a lot harder than it hit me.
“As time went on they started to get over it, but as I got older and my awareness of cancer evolved, it struck me a bit more that it had been a really big thing to go through at a young age.
“It then hit me all at once that I had missed out on so much as a child. When other children were learning to ride their bikes, having swimming lessons or going on school trips, I was usually attending the hospital for an appointment or I wasn’t well enough to go. When I was growing up I always felt that I was playing catch-up.”
Then, when Andrew was 16 and about to sit his GCSEs he suddenly found himself struggling with his mood. He stopped eating and was diagnosed as having borderline anorexia and depression. An all-consuming anxiety forced him to leave school, and for the next three years he struggled to leave the house.
He withdrew from his friends, and at a time when he should have been out enjoying new experiences, he instead cut himself off completely as he battled depression.
“I was in my final GCSE year when everything started to become low and I found that my smile was slowly disappearing,” he recalls. “I wasn’t enjoying life any more.
“When I stopped eating I was put on medication for depression and I had to be taken out of school. It was just before my GCSEs and I never got to sit them. “The college was brilliant and told me I could come back and repeat the year. I did try to go back that September but after three weeks I realised I couldn’t do it.
“I was having panic attacks, which left me confined to the house. I just shut myself away from the world and from all my friends. I didn’t even touch my phone. I worried every single day that I would become ill again, knowing that many of my friends had not survived this horrible disease even though they had fought it as hard as I had. Life really didn’t seem fair and I couldn’t understand why. I just couldn’t see a future.”
Suspecting that Andrew was suffering from PTSD, his mum contacted Action Cancer, which runs a counselling service.
He discovered an instant connection with the counsellor and found himself in an environment where he could talk openly about what was going on in his head.
“That’s when the healing began,” he says. “I had been annoyed with myself that all of this was happening to me over something that happened so long ago.
“I kept thinking: ‘Why is this in my head?’ I tried to tell myself that the past was the past and I should leave it there and look to the future. But I couldn’t.
“I wasn’t getting that choice and that annoyed me more. The more I talked about it to the counsellor the more I realised that I hadn’t addressed it or dealt with it properly.
“All the questions, all the worries and many things that people may think trivial became the causes of my anxiety and depression.
“The counsellor walked me through it all and she felt like a friend. I really felt that I could talk to her and this allowed me to move forward and recover and start setting goals for my future. Without Action Cancer I’m not sure where I’d be right now.”
Andrew met his girlfriend Nicola Stewart (18), a trainee hairdresser four years ago while starting to recover from his illness and says she has helped to get him through.
Before being overwhelmed by anxiety
I worried every day I would become ill again, knowing that many of my friends had not survived this horrible disease
and depression, Andrew had chosen his A-level subjects, knew what course he wanted to do at university and felt he had his future mapped out. His aim was to go to California after he graduated to become a software developer.
Although he didn’t get to finish his GCSEs and go on to fulfil his plans, he now realises that the path he had chosen was not in fact what he really wanted.
He explains: “I had everything planned out but looking back on it now I wonder was it really me who made those choices or was it me going along with everything? Looking back, I’m not sure I was in the right state of mind to know what I wanted with my life. I really love what I do now. I run my own business and work with other freelancers and I travel all over Northern Ireland working with different companies on their social media marketing and traditional marketing and their websites.
“I’ve also started boxing, which I love, and I find it is a great way to get the stress out.
“I love socialising with friends too. “That whole period of depression really changed my character. I was never overly shy but suddenly found myself happy to sit in the corner.
“I think the whole experience has made me become a better person. I am happier now, more outgoing and confident both in myself and in what I do.
“I love helping other people to get their confidence back too.
“I see it as my way of giving back and I really want to inspire others to get help or be better.
“As well as working with Action Cancer I have teamed up with a local social enterprise company to develop a business start-up and entrepreneurship course to encourage people to follow their dreams.
“It is aimed at people of all ages. We are still working out the details but it is something which isn’t available on the curriculum and it is purely to encourage people to get themselves out there and try new things.“
Andrew is also now throwing his weight behind Action Cancer’s call for people to join a new community group in Lurgan. He hopes people with a few hours to spare each month for fundraising will go along to an information evening next month.
He adds: “To have an Action Cancer community group start up in my home town is very important to me and I know the people of Lurgan will be extremely supportive of this initiative.
“It is so gratifying to know that my local community will be helping to fundraise for Action Cancer and therefore ensure that other people like me, from this the town, will be able to get the support they need when they need it most”.
The information evening about the Action Cancer community group will be held at the Jethro Centre, Flush Place, Lurgan, on March 19 at 7pm. If you wish to attend the event or if you would like to join the new group, call Mark Irwin-Watson, Tel: 028 9080 3379 or email mirwin-watson@actioncancer.org.