Sorcha Eastwood opens up about husband's battle with rare form of blood cancer

The Alliance Party's Sorcha Eastwood is not only running for office in the upcoming UK General Election as the Lagan Valley candidate gears up to take part in a fun fun to raise money for a charity close to her heart.

Last summer, Sorcha's husband Dale was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer for which he is currently undergoing treatment.

Speaking to Belfast Live about how his diagnosis has impacted them both, Sorcha said that her life has not been the same since.

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"My husband has a very rare form of blood cancer called T-lymphoblastic lymphoma," she said.

"It is a blood cancer so it is very similar to leukaemia. The treatment protocol is the same for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. This is generally a children's cancer, there are not that many adults who get it. But already I've been so touched and impacted by the amount of families that I have met across Northern Ireland who have had kids who have had the same cancer that my husband has.

"For me, it has really brought into complete, close contact the fact that we need to do so much more to support families and children with cancer. And for me, one of the big things I've been campaigning on is the fact that we need a completely new Regional Haematology Centre for Northern Ireland. At the moment we have one situated at the Belfast City Hospital. "

"The staff and everybody are incredible and fantastic, but the facilities are just not there and all the money we raised for Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI stays in Northern Ireland to fund research. Because this is a very rare and aggressive cancer, some of the treatments are lagging behind whenever you look at the likes of what we would call solid tumour cancers such as the likes of breast, bowel and stuff like that.

"Because this is a blood cancer, it's very difficult to treat and there is a lot that is unknown about it really because it is so rare and because it is an entire systemic cancer. So basically the money that we raised in Northern Ireland goes to actually funding scientists who are working in the labs at the minute at Queen's trying to make a breakthrough."

Dale began his treatment on June 16 last year and has been undergoing daily chemotherapy which is expected to continue for the next two years.

"I will never forget it," Sorcha added.

"We had just been basically told on 2nd May sitting in the Lagan Valley emergency department that he had cancer, and we obviously left in tears, and I don't think I'll ever get over it. I'm still not over it probably to be honest.

"We were told that it will be okay, it will probably be a lymphoma. That's a good one. You want this one. It's a good one. And we just went away and cried and cried and cried. And we kind of got ourselves together then and thought this doesn't seem too bad. I mean, it's obviously not ideal, but you know, would hopefully be okay.

"Then on the 16th of June has tissue biopsy came back. And he had a massive like a loose mass of jelly and stuff in the middle of his chest. And they basically got that biopsy back. And that's when our world completely changed forever. And they were like actually, no, it's not what we thought at all. It's this very rare cancer called T lymphoblastic lymphoma, we think that how has a very different prognosis to what we thought it may have been."

Sorcha told Belfast Live that her husband then spent seven months as an in-patient at Belfast City Hospital which was personally difficult for her as she didn't want to be spreading infection by continuing to work and visit the hospital.

"That was incredibly difficult for me because I was still working. But I had to basically cut down all contact with people because he had no immune system. And not just him, but the guys that he was a ward with. So you don't get your own room. There's no sort of, you know, special treatment as such, you are in a bay with four other people.

"You become really aware of the fact that you don't want to infect your family member, but the people that they're basically in the ward with. So touch wood at the minute, if things go to plan, he has been having chemotherapy daily that's still ongoing. If things go to plan that will continue on for the next two years. If things don't go to plan, then it will be looking at a stem cell transplant or bone marrow transplant.

"And I've already met so many families in Northern Ireland who have been doing that route. And it's very, very arduous. It's very, very risky. It's not an easy procedure. And it's no guarantee of a cure, there are really no cures here.

"It's opened my eyes to the fact that we need to do so much more to support stem cell donation, bone marrow donation and awareness in the same way that we've seen with organ donation. So it's really very tough, but it's the other people that have gone through it that keep you going."

Sorcha explained that juggling her work and looking after her husband has been particularly tough for her because she is always in demand. This has been further compounded by the election with her husband now living apart from her to allow her to hit the ground running on the campaign trail.

"I am living apart from Dale because of the election campaign. I don't want to put him at risk and I do want to put my whole heart into this because people here in my home of Lisburn have told me to go for it. At the same time it is extremely difficult and at times I feel like I am doing it on my own because he is not there with me but we have three weeks to go and hopefully I'll have him back soon enough."

Sorcha got her first taste of politics around 30 years ago when she wrote a letter to the old Lisburn Borough Council complaining about litter in Wallace Park and the state of the public toilets. From there, she got involved with the former Down and Lisburn Trust to campaign about access to public buildings after the Waterfront Hall opened in 1997 without disabled access.

Sitting in the very park where her political career began, Sorcha told us how that then developed into attending anti-war protests and making life better for people.

"For me, it was only ever going to be Alliance, that being said I never thought somebody like me was ever going to be involved never mind elected more than once. So, for me it is about loving my home, loving where I am from and trying to make life better."

Discussing her training for the fun run, Sorcha added: "I am not going to lie, the training was going really well until about a week ago when I just hit a brick wall because we were out so many days and we are out so many hours. You could be standing for about eight or nine hours and the thing about canvassing is that it is very different to leafletting.

"When you are leafletting you are literally running around but when you are canvassing, it is very slow because you are going to one door, you are spending time talking and then you are going to another. It is very time-consuming and that is the reason why we are doing it because we are trying to spend as much time with people and chat to them as possible but it is one of those things where you are on your feet for a lot of the day and in the last week I haven't been great with the awl training on the running but I think I will do ok."

Video by Harry Bateman/Belfast Live

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