SALE resident, Ged O’Connor was on holiday in Quesada, Spain, when he noticed blood in his urine.

He headed for the local clinic. Within two hours, he had been scanned at another clinic, got the results, and an English translation of the report.

He learned that he had primary cancer of the bladder and near his pancreas and a secondary cancer in his liver diagnosed as leiomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of the disease.

Ged, 64, said: “ We came home immediately and decided to go private. After a successful operation on my bladder I was coming round when the consultant came in and said the other cancer was in my pancreas, not near it, and that I had six to12 months to live.

“It was brutal the way he told me,” said Ged.

Hope returned when later they admitted the tumour was indeed near the pancreas, not in it.

Referred back to the NHS he was offered chemotherapy by a sarcoma specialist.

He accepted the treatment which would only give him a one in four chance of living another nine months.

At Christmas 2015, a month after diagnosis, and before treatment began, he even enjoyed a family holiday in New York

The retired former head of IT and business development at a Cheadle company returned determined to seek help elsewhere.

On line, his wife, Angela, discovered the Grace Gawler Institute who suggested he contact Professor Vogl in Frankfurt. He gave him a treatment - Trans Arterial Chemo Embolisation (TACE) - which attacks the tumour directly.

He is undergoing two treatments a month in Frankfurt at a cost of 4,000 Euros per treatment and it is having positive results.

He said: “What angers me is that TACE is available on the NHS for other cancers but not for sarcoma patients because they say they have insufficient evidence to prove it works.

“I’d love to be a guinea pig.”

* Ged has written a book called That Will do Nicely. Full of humour, it is available, priced £3.48, from Amazon. It can be downloaded to your computer or smart phone by using the free Kindle user app.