A couple of years ago my life was saved by a very special man. His name is Hanny Anwar. He’s a surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He removed the cancer from the base of my spine. Along with a lot of bone. But he did so much more than that. Surgeons have a reputation for being cocky, arrogant and cursed with poor people skills. Hanny isn't like that. As well as being exceptionally gifted, he's also a very thoughtful and spiritual man. Once he'd diagnosed my cancer as chordoma, he explained to me that it has a very high recurrence rate. On average, there's a 60% chance that chordomas return. I was trying to get my head around this. That I was going to put myself through brutal surgery with a long recovery, losing bladder bowel and sexual function... to emerge with the odds against me. Hanny said something to me that I'll never forget. He reassured me that if the cancer did return that it could be treated with radiotherapy or further surgery. He told me that the hospital treats patients with recurrent cancer that live for decades. 'So if it comes back, it's not necessarily a death sentence?', I asked. 'No more than life is', he replied. Wow. It was such a great answer, I burst out laughing. In that moment I knew that I completely trusted him. I felt immensely privileged to be his patient. Along with his colleague who also operated on me, John Afolayan, he is currently trekking ONE HUNDRED KILOMETRES across THE SAHARA DESERT. It will take them five days. Yes, they're insane. But they’re doing it to raise money for the @thernohcharity.    All the money raised goes back into NHS services at the hospital to help more patients in the future. The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital is our only national orthopaedic hospital. It treats patients from all over the country, including injured service personnel and people like me who suffer from rare bone cancer. Anything you can give will make a massive difference. Surely they deserve it. Thank you. justgiving.com/campaign/rnoh…

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