Doctors discovered 12 tumors on his spine and revealed the cancer had “eaten away at the vertebrae” in his back
What Terry Harper first thought was ordinary back pain turned out to be something far more serious — an incurable cancer diagnosis.
Harper, a 62-year-old bus driver from London, said his back began hurting in February 2022 after moving a mattress, according to The Independent. When he went to the Princess Royal University Hospital, doctors initially told him he had slipped some discs and reassured him that he should start recovering within about six weeks.
But things quickly worsened. Harper recalled that by April 2022, the pain had become so unbearable that he couldn’t even get out of bed. When he returned to the hospital, further testing uncovered the devastating truth: he had stage 3 multiple myeloma, a type of incurable blood cancer marked by abnormal plasma cell growth in the bone marrow.
Attempts were made to contact the Princess Royal University Hospital for comment on Saturday, Sept. 13, but no immediate response was received.
“I can’t describe the emotional turmoil you go through when you think it’s just a bad back and then hear you have cancer eating away at your spine,” Harper told The Independent.
Doctors informed Harper that the disease had “eaten away at the vertebrae” in his back and revealed that he had 12 tumors along his spine, in addition to osteoporosis. He also shared that the damage from collapsed discs caused by the cancer had left him 4.5 inches shorter.
Harper began chemotherapy in December 2023 and was able to go into remission. However, the cancer returned in June, and he has since had to resume treatment.
Now, Harper undergoes chemotherapy twice a week while still working four days a week as a bus driver — a routine he admitted has “run him to the ground.”
“I’ve been a bus driver for 20 years, and they take good care of me. I only work five hours a day now, but I’m earning less than half of what I used to. Financially, it’s hard,” the father of three told The Independent.
To help make ends meet, Harper’s longtime partner now works six days a week. Meanwhile, his middle daughter, Olivia, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to support her dad through what she described as the “nightmare” of his diagnosis.
“This GoFundMe is purely to allow my dad to pay his bills and take some time out to recover from treatment,” Olivia explained on the fundraising page. She added that she hopes the money will give her father the chance to “slow down and recover” as he focuses on his health.
“We need my dad, and I wish I could make this all go away,” she wrote.
As of Sept. 13, the fundraiser had brought in $1,055 toward its goal of $2,440.
