A FATHER from Westbury has written a book about his daughter’s journey since she was diagnosed with kidney failure and cancer five years ago.
Just after sitting her A-levels, Hannah was diagnosed with kidney failure. A year later, she received a new kidney from her aunt then went off to study history at Bangor University in North Wales. But just weeks into her second year, she was diagnosed with a very unusual cancerous tumour behind her nose. After chemotherapy and radiotherapy, she was told that the treatment hadn’t worked and that she would die. However, the prognosis was shown, with hindsight, to be incorrect and Hannah is now preparing to go back to Bangor in September for the final year of her history degree.
Andrew Stone’s book follows the ups and downs of his daughter Hannah’s life over the last five years.
Andrew said, “I originally wrote a book about Hannah’s kidney failure, dialysis and transplant. This was being considered for publication when the cancer was diagnosed. After she was declared free of cancer, a number of people encouraged me to put the emails which I had sent to family and friends over the last five years into book form.
“Writing the first book took a week’s ‘holiday’ of concentrated writing and writing the second version took another week of holiday two years later.
“I wanted to write the book for several reasons. Firstly, to give God the glory for what he has done in the life of my family. But also to help others who might be going through similar trials and increase awareness of what is involved particularly in kidney dialysis and donation/transplantation. Plus I’ve always wanted to write a book.
“Hannah was fine with me writing the book, she got to check everything that was included and we included pieces that she wrote after the transplant and after she went into remission.
“My wife Susan helped with the book too. She is my finest critic and she did lots of proofreading and checking.
“Hannah is very well most of the time. Her kidney is performing very well despite not being on any anti-rejection drugs. She still suffers from cancer fatigue which gets her down at times. She also has to wear hearing aids because of damage done by the radiotherapy. That said, she’s finished her second year at Bangor University in North Wales and is looking forward to going back for her final year next month.”
Andrew’s book, ‘Too Young To Die?’ is available to buy from Day One Publications priced at £7 and should soon be available on Amazon.
