Lifesaving lesson: Dad’s cancer spotted ... thanks to daughter’s GCSE biology
WHEN Jonathan Jenkyn helped his daughter Alice with some last-minute revision for her biology GCSE exam, he was thinking only of her future.
But he ended up preserving his own, after they discovered a lump that turned out to be a cancerous tumour.
Alice, 17, was struggling to remember where the lymph nodes are when Mr Jenkyn pointed to his neck – and felt something under his skin.
He immediately made an appointment with his GP, which led to the diagnosis of throat cancer. The father of five had six weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and has now been given the all-clear.
Doctors said that if the 43-year-old had not identified the grape- sized lump at
‘It was pure luck we discovered the lump’
such an early stage he could have been dead in months.
‘I often help my kids with their homework but this was really lucky,’ said Mr Jenkyn, an IT security consultant from Ipswich.
‘Alice struggles with science, which I did quite well in, but it was pure luck that we happened to be studying something that would lead to discovering the lump.
‘We had a brief discussion as to what it could be at the time and I explained that the lymph nodes can get inflamed for nonurgent reasons.
‘ But I promised her I would get it checked out and it’s lucky I did. She passed her science GCSE as well, so clearly the revision helped both her and me. We’re very proud of her.’
Alice said: ‘I didn’t expect my revision to have such a huge effect on our lives and I feel guilty about not noticing the lump myself but I’m so happy we found it.’ Mr
Jenkyn had another brush with death in 2015 when he went into cardiac arrest in his sleep. His wife Sacha, 55, performed CPR for 20 minutes until paramedics arrived. He spent three weeks in hospital and was fitted with a pacemaker.
He is now trying to raise £2,000 for Ipswich Hospital’s radiotherapy department.