Chesterfield man's life turned upside down when tinnitus turned out to be incurable blood cancer

When Thom Nicholson woke up one morning with a loud ringing in both ears little did he know that his life was about to be turned upside down.

Within weeks a scan revealed a mass behind his left ear had pierced a hole through his skull.

In April 2022, he was finally diagnosed with myeloma, an incurable blood cancer which can eat away at the bones, leaving holes, and kills 3,000 people in the UK each year.

He was just 51 years old.

“It’s been a bit of a whirlwind – but when we were told I decided to take it week by week and see what happens,” said the project planner at Network Rail. “Unfortunately myeloma is one of those things that never goes away – all they’re doing is trying to suppress it for as long as possible.

“I have diabetes and the way I see it is myeloma is the cancer equivalent of diabetes. I know that in a few years’ time – however many – it will come back and I’m going to have treatment again to push it back down. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Myeloma occurs in the bone marrow and currently affects over 24,000 people in the UK.

It is a relapsing-remitting cancer, meaning that although many patients will experience periods of remission following treatment, the disease will inevitably return.

Despite being the third most common type of blood cancer, it is especially difficult to detect as symptoms, including back pain, easily broken bones, fatigue and recurring infection, are often linked to general ageing or minor conditions.

Just before Christmas 2021, when Thom woke up with tinnitus in both ears one morning.

While it eased up in his right ear after an hour, the constant ringing in his left ear didn’t let up. His still suffers from tinnitus in his left ear to this day.

He visited his GP who suspected an ear infection. Despite being prescribed antibiotics, the tinnitus didn’t go away. Eventually, after a couple of months, Thom was referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist who spotted a mass behind his ear.

An MRI revealed the mass had pierced a hole in his skull right behind his ear.

He started chemotherapy five days after his diagnosis at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

“At the end of the day, I’m not going to curl up under a duvet and say my life is over because it’s not,” added Thom, now 52. “There are far too many places that we’ve not been to that my wife Jules and I need to see. I’m not going to stop living because of myeloma. I’m not going to let it define me.”

Thom went on to receive a stem-cell transplant in November 2022.

Loath to see his back-length hair fall out in great big clumps during chemotherapy, Thom decided to chop it all off and donated it to the Little Princess Trust.

Now, in a show of solidarity, Thom’s friend of 23 years Dave Colter is set to follow suit and shave his own head for Myeloma UK.

The head shave will take place at the BrewDog Outpost in Manchester on Sunday, February 19 at 2pm.

Losing his long hair wasn’t a decision 50-year-old Dave took lightly. Over the past 25 years, his distinctive white mane has turned him into something of local celebrity in and around Manchester and earned him the nickname of ‘Gandalf’.

“I’ve had long hair for nearly 25 years so there’s going to be butterflies and tears on the day,” said Dave, from Chorlton, who works for the BBC. “I wanted to help raise awareness – it’s quite an obscure cancer, people don’t know about it or talk about it. For Thom it started as something that didn’t look like cancer at all until, suddenly, it was cancer.”

Thom said: “I was in hospital in isolation when Dave, and our friend Gillian who is organising the head shave, told me on a Zoom call. When they told me I cried for about two hours. For Dave to do something like this, it just blew me away. Even now when we talk about it there’s usually a pause because I start welling up.”

To support Dave Colter and make a donation go to https://www.justgiving.com/page/david-colter-head-shave