The road back

Posted on 15 April 2013

TV presenter and keen cyclist Xylon van Eyck is a fit, healthy, positive guy. And becoming ill was not on his agenda at all.

Words Will Sinclair Photograph Adam McConnachie

Go to Xylon van Eyck’s Twitter profile, @XylonVE, and here’s what you’ll find: ‘Cycling Commentator, @TeamMTNQhubeka Press Officer. Radio since 16, TV presenter since 22. Busy beating cancer.’ Those last three words seem tagged on, almost as an afterthought, as if they don’t really belong with the rest of the description.
And they don’t. Xylon, a former SuperSport Blitz presenter who’s worked for media outlets like 5FM, Kaya FM and Algoa FM, is probably the last person you’d expect to be diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer like non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He certainly didn’t see it coming.
‘It was a total shock,’ he says. ‘I was like, “What are you talking about? I’m 27 years old. I’m a cyclist.
I’m working in professional sport. This isn’t meant to happen to me.”’ But it was happening to him –
and Xylon’s cancer journey is both a warning and an inspiration to people in similar positions.
‘I’m generally quite a healthy person,’ he tells us, ‘but for the two years leading up to my diagnosis in 2011 I was getting sick about once a month, either vomiting, getting shingles, bronchitis, the flu, or catching a cold… At first I didn’t connect the dots but it turned out that those illnesses were all related to my immune system being weak. Then my wife and I were travelling through Southeast Asia for two months, and we were on this beautiful island in Thailand, but all I could do was puke my guts out! I started vomiting blood and I thought, “OK… We have about a week left before we go home to South Africa, and when I get back I’ll really have to get to a doctor.”’
And that’s exactly what he didn’t do.
‘You know what guys are like,’ he says. ‘Unless our arms and legs are actually falling off, we’re not going to go to the doctor. But then I broke out in a rash from head to toe, and the rash was what
did it: finally I went to the doctor.’
But Xylon’s GP didn’t care much about the rash at all: she was more interested in finding out why he’d been vomiting blood. ‘My doctor was quite switched on,’ he says. ‘She booked me in for a scan with the radiologist, who noticed that I had an ulcer in my stomach. But they suspected there was something much deeper going on, so I was sent for a CAT scan, which showed lesions in my spleen and in other parts of my body. I was then referred to a surgeon, who said, “Judging by the scans it’s probably lymphoma, but I’d like to cut out one of the lymph nodes to test it.” He did, and it came back positive for lymphoma.’
Lymphoma is a type of cancer that that begins in the body’s immune system cells (called lymphocytes). According to Xylon’s oncologist, Dr Shun Devan Moodley, who is based at the Wits Donald Gordon
Medical Centre, ‘The symptoms are usually swollen glands, in other words painless lumps in the areas you would expect to find lymph nodes. Patients sometimes also have night sweats and unexplained weight loss.’
‘Lymphoma is basically your immune system attacking itself,’ says Xylon. ‘Your body has several lymph nodes, which build your immune system, and then sometimes things go wrong in the cell production and it causes these little cells, which aren’t meant to reproduce, and they replicate faster than you want them to, and that’s the cancer cells.
So it’s basically your immune system working against itself and not functioning at the level it should be because the cancer cells are attacking it.’
Xylon appreciated the way Dr Moodley broke the diagnosis to him. ‘He wasn’t like, “You have cancer.” He was very positive. He said, “This looks like lymphoma, but I don’t want you to go write your will now because this is one of the cancers we can kill. If you’re going to have cancer, this is the one you probably want.”’
The diagnosis revealed that Xylon had a type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma – and by now it had already progressed to stage 3. ‘Lymphomas are staged 1 to 4,’ explains Dr Moodley. ‘The higher the stage the further advanced the cancer is usually, but this is not always the case. There are always ifs, buts and maybes.’ But despite the relatively positive news, for Xylon, it was less about ‘if’ or ‘but’… and more a case of ‘why?’
‘You do go: “Why is this happening to me?”,’ he says, remembering the initial shock of the diagnosis. ‘It’s only natural to ask that. I still don’t understand
why it happened, but what I did learn from it is that’s how diamonds are made. I’m not saying this comes from God. It just comes from life: you’re tested and you go through the furnace, and the diamond comes out sparkling and shining on the other side. I wouldn’t wish to go through it again – I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone! – but when life is easy you don’t learn as much as you do when life is really tough.’
With the support of his wife, Wendy, (‘If it weren’t for her I don’t know how I would’ve pulled through this,’ he says), Xylon entered the difficult treatment period. In 2012 he went through 12 sessions of chemotherapy – but when those failed to kill the cancer, he had to return in 2013 for four more three-hour sessions, as well as a bone-marrow transplant. It was the biggest challenge of his life.
‘I found the 2013 treatments really hard,’ he says. ‘I’d start vomiting the minute I walked into the hospital and smelled the treatment room, even before getting chemotherapy. Sitting in that chair, receiving that treatment, was one of the hardest things to do. I couldn’t look at the other patients or I’d want to vomit, so I’d sit there with my eyes closed. I really battled.’
Xylon’s faith and his positive outlook on life helped carry him through this difficult period. ‘I’m
a very positive person,’ he says, ‘and I learnt early on in life that you should never stand still. Life is
all about progressing. Sitting in the chemotherapy room, getting the treatment… It’s horrible and there
are days when you don’t want to get out of bed.
But life doesn’t stop there. You have your ups and downs, but that’s just the nature of living.’
That positive outlook played a huge role in Xylon’s eventual recovery. ‘A positive attitude is extremely important in managing this process,’ says Dr Moodley. ‘It helps get you through difficult moments. A good attitude is vital in managing the terrible side effects and keeping you focused to get to the end of this chemotherapy ordeal.’
Fortunately, Xylon responded to that final round of treatment and, within about six weeks, he started feeling like a normal person again. He still struggled to walk up stairs and he found himself getting tired at work quicker than normal, but at least he was back on his feet. Now, almost two years after being diagnosed, Xylon is back on his bicycle and hopes to celebrate Cancer Awareness Day on 4 February 2014 with a cancer-free body.
And despite what he’s been through, Xylon can look back and tell us that, knowing what he knows now about the disease, there’s nothing he would do differently. ‘Except for one thing,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I think if I could do this all over again, I might, maybe, go see the doctor a bit sooner!’

78%
A study published in 2008 by medical journal Lancet predicted  that, based on current rates and living standards, South Africa could see an increase of 78% in the number of cancer cases by the year 2030. That’s ahead of the predicted global average of 78%, but lower than the 98% increase expected in countries with low standards of living.

Lymphoma explained

‘Lymphoma is basically your immune system attacking itself. Your body has several lymph nodes, which build your immune system, and then sometimes things go wrong in the cell production and it causes these little cells, which aren’t meant to reproduce, and they replicate faster than you
want them to, and that’s the cancer cells,’ says Xylon.

The information provided in this article was correct at the time of publishing. At Mediclinic we endeavour to provide our patients and readers with accurate and reliable information, which is why we continually review and update our content. However, due to the dynamic nature of clinical information and medicine, some information may from time to time become outdated prior to revision.