Cancer victim has new hope (From Free Press Series)

Cancer victim has new hope

A mother suffering from a rare cancer feels she has a future again after last-ditch experimental treatment reduced the size of her deadly tumour.

Since being diagnosed with clear cell sarcoma, 38-year-old mum Lorain Hodson from Bluebell Drive in Thornwell, has endured two amputations, the first below her knee and the second above it, as part of her treatment - but learned to live with the fact she was unlikely to be cured.

Mrs Hodson demonstrated her courage on Boxing Day last year when she used her uncomfortable artificial leg to walk the two-mile-long old Severn Bridge, raising £1,000 for the Velindre appeal in the process. It was the first time she'd walked in three years.

Last October Mrs Hodson's doctors at Cardiff's Velindre Hospital started her on a free trial run of ET741 chemotherapy to see if they could "buy her some time".

The treatment was demoralising for Mrs Hodson, mother of teenagers Chris and Amy, and the side effects so awful that she rejected the final session of the six-part treatment.

But last week the Hodson family received the news they've longed to hear - the treatment appears to have worked, reducing the tumour on her heart from 36mm to 23mm.

In the previous two years it had grown 15mm, the sort of slow growth which doctors advised Mrs Hodson see as a minor victory.

Mrs Hodson said: "You get used to the blows and the bad news, this is amazing. I feel I have a future to look forward to again. This is the first time the tumour has reduced without cutting off a part of my body.

"Ultimately we don't know if we'll beat the cancer but it has increased my time here."