Hull taxi driver Barry Garton tells of lung cancer battle
after putting off x-rayA former taxi driver has told how doctors discovered a tumour in his lung after he put off going for an x-ray.
Barry Garton, who used to work as a private hire driver in the city, had been smoking for almost 60 years before he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder
When Mr Garton went for a check-up in May, he was told his illness was worsening and he was advised to go to hospital for a chest x-ray but he put it off.
After losing two stone and becoming severely short of breath, he suffered a mini-stroke known as a TIA and eventually agreed to have an x-ray.
He said: "People are still frightened of the word cancer. It's not something you want to be told you have.
"I was worried I wouldn't be able to walk from my car to the clinic as my breathing was so bad. But maybe I also put it off because I was in denial.
"My family felt guilty because they had pushed me into having the x-ray, but I know I should have done what I was told and gone sooner."
Around 63,000 adults in Hull smoke and the city's smoking rate of 27 per cent is much higher than the England average of 17 per cent. People from Hull are twice as likely to die from lung cancer as people in other parts of the country.
Now recovering from radiotherapy after a tumour was discovered in a bronchial tube carrying oxygen to his lungs, Mr Garton, 72, said he struggled to stop smoking even after he was diagnosed with COPD.
He said: "I started smoking when I was about 12. Everybody smoked then, it was the norm. I was smoking about 20 a day at one point, then I was diagnosed with COPD and I cut down to three or four a day.
"I feel like saying to young kids, 'If you want to finish up like I am carry on, but my recommendation is stop smoking'."
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