A SCHOOL teacher who has beaten cancer is now running a marathon to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Matt Skillicorn who grew up in Blennerhasset, was diagnosed with follicular cancer in July 2017, just three days before he was due to fly to Brazil to teach there.

He said: “I’d already arranged to go and teach out in São Paulo. Three days before going to Brazil they said it’s probably follicular cancer in my thyroid. There was no way I could have backed out.”

If it wasn’t for the general check up Matt had before going to São Paulo, the cancer would have gone undetected. Matt has always suffered from throat infections and just passed them off as nothing because he works with children.

At the general check up they found a nodule - which is normal in older people - but after further tests and a biopsy identified it as follicular cancer.

Matt added: “I think I knew at that point my thyroid would have to come out, they wanted to take it out straightaway as a precaution, or a partial removal of it anyway.

“It was three days once my biopsy results came back until I was going to Brazil. I knew that I couldn’t back out of my prior engagement and I was kinda just hoping they would say ‘it’s all sorted’, but at the back of my mind I knew that it was never going to work out and be that easy.”

Matt didn’t want to tell anyone he had been diagnosed with cancer, he didn’t tell his parents because he didn’t want them to worry.

He went to Brazil with his girlfriend Alex and decided to get the treatment over there.

He, said: “It was just me and my girlfriend trying to sort through it and get into a doctors and try and work out the lingo.

“When I finally got into somewhere everything went fine. The operation itself went fine. A little piece of me will always be in São Paulo.”

Matt was given the all clear at West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven in November 2018, and immediately began fundraising for the Haspa Marathon that he will run in Hamburg on Sunday .

He said: “It was a good little goal that if I got the all clear and didn’t have cancer anymore that was going to be my way of celebrating.

“I’ve been really lucky and the way I found out and it all got sorted, I just thought right I’m going to go for it.

“Never in a million years did I think I’d be able to do a marathon, but I’m getting there slowly. I’d love to say I’ve run a marathon and I thought if I’m going to do it, I just need to bite the bullet and do it.”

Matt’s mum Gill said: “I’m just happy now we are doing something positive. It puts your life into perspective and makes you want to be glad for every day that you get. These things make you grateful for what you’ve got.”

Matt had planned to run the Manchester marathon but when he asked his friend Ralph Mesquita to run it with him, he told him that a few people were running the Haspa marathon and should join them.

Matt added: “He’s whipping me into shape, it’s going to be good to test my body and what I’m capable of.”

To donate to Matt’s run for cancer, visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/matt-skillicorn.