40 Years Of Cancer Phil's A Living Miracle

He’s turning his eighth diagnosis into a positive.

For more than 40 years, Phil Kerslake stared death in the face, but when his cancer returned for the eighth time last year, he knew he was about to confront his biggest battle yet.

Although he’d sheltered sons Rhys, 10, and Matthew, eight, from his history of lymphoma, Phil and his wife Gill decided it was time to talk to their boys.

“I told them I’d beaten cancer seven times and I was going to do it again,” tells Phil, 58. “It wasn’t going to be easy,but I wasn’t going to die.”

While Matthew just hugged Phil, his big brother Rhys said, “Don’t worry, Dad – we’ll fight this as a family.”

After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a teenager, Phil has lived with terminal cancer most of his life. It lay dormant for five to 10 years, then reappeared, progressing into his bones, marrow and internal organs. Yet Phil says it never crosses his mind that cancer might take his life.

“I was told at 19 that I had 10 years to live,” he recalls with a laugh. “But I’m still here. If a doctor tells me it looks bad, I see it as a challenge. My response is, ‘What’s going to kick it? Let’s do that.’”