Embarking on his first op – hurricane disaster relief in the Caribbean – the sapper was looking forward to a promising future and had already set his sights on Pathfinder selection. Then, one morning, a chance discovery turned his life upside down. Here, the 22-year-old shares his story…
Just six months ago I was living my best life – working as a joiner and enjoying life with 24 Commando Royal Engineers.
I was in Florida preparing for six months on a disaster relief deployment, and after that I should have been heading off to Norway, doing a diving course then maybe going for Pathfinder selection.
Then one night I was in the shower and found a lump in my left testicle.
‘I’ll get that checked when I get back in December,’ I thought to myself.
Still, it played on my mind and by pure chance I saw the ship’s doctor the next day.
He examined me and said I needed to go to a hospital on the mainland.
On the Wednesday I was in a Tampa medical centre and that night I called my mum, Victoria, to tell her.
She’s a primary school headteacher in civvy life and a reservist lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps; along with my sister, she’s one of my best mates.
Thursday brought more tests and I was told I needed to come back with the ship’s doctor.
Deep down I think I knew where this was all heading, although the last thing I’d honestly ever expected to be contemplating was a cancer diagnosis.
But I heard the C word at 1000 on Friday morning and was told I’d be flown home over the weekend.
I called mum and almost cried but mostly I was in shock, trying to focus.
I landed at Heathrow on the Saturday. A mate, who was duty driver that day, picked me up from the airport and took me over to Devon where mum was waiting. She hid her worry behind jokes and small talk, laughing inappropriately about my nuts.
The next day, our MO explained that I’d hear from a hospital closer to my home in the north-west. As he signed me off indefinitely, it hit – no work, no purpose, no tour, no plan.
The next week was a whirlwind – seeing a urologist, scans, blood tests and trips to the sperm bank in case treatment made me infertile. Then there was the surgery to remove the testicle.
Two weeks later, mum and I sat in urology to hear the biopsy results.
My cancer was rare and aggressive, and my blood markers were still high, so clinicians ordered a CT scan to check for spread.
There was three weeks of waiting, which was hard. I was angry at times. I would snap at mum and then apologise. My mates Facetimed and I loved it, but then I’d spiral, seething that a single shower could change everything.
I was threaders, desperate to get back to full fitness and work.
At the oncology appointment there was good news. The cancer was at stage one, meaning it was localised to the testicle. They would do one round of chemo but otherwise I should be okay.
The doctor said the decision to get the lump checked had probably saved my life.
Had I left it until Christmas, I might not be here now.
Mum asked the questions, I simply asked if I could have sex – she rolled her eyes. But sex is important to people, especially when you’ve got cancer in your junk!
I had to wait – you can’t have chemo until six weeks after surgery to give your body a chance to recover.
But we were booked into the Clatterbridge Cancer Hospital, Liverpool where I would be an inpatient for four days.
I can’t really describe what was going through my mind when we arrived. The chemo I had was called BEP – Google it and you’ll find it’s not pleasant.
It has loads of potential side effects and the first chemical assault didn’t finish until the next day.
Back home, I was sick as a dog.
I grizzed it out, but it was rubbish. The other sessions were just as awful. And then there was the bell you ring after the last one. The day I rang it, there was a lad on the day ward who had come in with a sore throat to be told he had stage four lymphoma.
He was 24 and had just bought a house with his girlfriend. Mum and I looked at one another – she was close to tears.
Back on the work front, a couple of other plans had been upended – I was told there would be absolutely no diving, nor jumping from high altitude, for a year. The B in BEP – Bleomycin – leaves your lungs wrecked and they need to recover.
But a few tests and a CT scan later showed I was clear.
I’ll need three-monthly blood tests and six-monthly scans for the next five years but for now, I am good to go.
As I write this, it’ll be another two weeks before I can start my phased return to work. I can’t wait and have my eye on supporting the next bunch of commando engineers on their beat-up course to ease me back in.
I know I’m one of the blessed; that there are thousands of people with cancer who are not so lucky.
It has been a long and difficult journey, full of emotions for me and my family. I am so glad I flagged up the lump early and allowed the medical chain to kick in.
So my call to arms is this – lads or lasses, please check yourselves, and get checked if you are not happy.
And this applies to wherever you happen to be, and whatever you are doing in the world.
Lt Victoria Carr (above with Tom) admitted being terrified by her son’s diagnosis – but said she was determined to stay strong and has praised medics for their swift response.
Hearing the news down the phone, the Intelligence Corps officer and civvy street headteacher added: “I remember my stomach flipping, my breath catching and having to steady my voice.
“In the days that followed, my life became split into compartments – headteacher, soldier, mother, carer. In the mornings I’d be interviewing, managing my school’s expansion, creating policies and reviewing reports; by afternoon I was navigating oncology referrals, family support for Tom and post-op care.
“You learn that resilience isn’t about never breaking; it’s refusing to stay broken, making sense of what has happened, learning from it and sharing that with others.”
