Forty-five year-old British company director Andy Langdon was told he had just two years to live. But he refused to give up and ended-up being cured, starting with an operation in the UK.

Andy at home

In June 2008, Andy Langdon was on holiday in Greece. ‘I had this terrible stomach pain,’ he recalls. ‘I thought it was food poisoning and eventually it went away. But then it came back again, this terrible pain, and it disappeared within twelve hours.’

Andy went to see a doctor and, after a thorough examination, he suspected gall stones. Andy had no reason to doubt this. Everything in Finland had gone well so far.

Outgoing and positive, Andy came to Finland in 1994. ‘I thought, “I’m nearly 30” and if I don’t make a big change now I never will,’ he recalled.

Originally from Kent in south east England, Andy had been working for the medical company Glaxo as a senior sales representative. But his brother had met a Finn on holiday, married her and lived in Helsinki. Accordingly, Andy ended up at a wedding in Finland and there he met the woman who became his wife, Sari. Together, he and his brother set up a communications company – Langdons Ltd – to teach mainly Finnish clients business communication skills.

‘We mainly teach Finnish guys how to sell ideas,’ he tells me. ‘About being proactive and picking up the phone.’ His work has taken him all around the world, while working for Nokia, and even to Rovaniemi. He has now begun writing ‘Murder Mystery Weekends’ for clients in hotels and is soon to publish a book of short stories.

‘I liked Finland in 1994 because it was very Finnish,’ Andy tells me. ‘You had to learn Finnish whereas nowadays you don’t need to.’

‘But there was no internet then, so keeping in touch with friends was difficult. I think people in Lapland are friendlier than Helsinki. One time in Helsinki I stopped at a zebra crossing to let someone cross and they waved. My brother said, “See! Some Finns are friendly!” and I said “Steve, that’s my neighbour!”

Andy has four sons who all speak ‘perfect English.’ And everything seemed to be going well until the summer of 2008. After his visit to the doctor, ‘the pains became more and more frequent and sometimes I ended-up in hospital.’

Andy eventually went to a private doctor who gave him an MRI and referred him to a radiologist. He had to wait for a few months before being told he had ‘some growth in the spleen,’ which is near the pancreas. ‘The doctor said I needed to have a biopsy,’ remembers Andy. ‘And then the biopsy reservation from the hospital came mentioning the liver which was weird because the problem was nothing to do with the liver.’

A friend who was a doctor was also suspicious  suggested that Andy demand to see his medical records. Andy, who speaks fluent Finnish, did exactly that and, while still in the hospital corridor, read that ‘there are secondary growths in the liver which the patient has not been told about yet and the surgeon says it is not possible to operate.’

Andy was not going to go down without a fight. ‘When you’re told you have cancer your first reaction is, “How could this happen to me?”’ he says, ever up-beat. ‘But within a day I’d accepted it. I was either going to die or I wasn’t but either way I was going to give it my best shot!’

Drawing upon his many business contacts, Andy set up an email network to get information, started talking to doctors in the USA and went to see a top private Finnish doctor. One doctor on his network said that he’d never heard of primary cancer in the spleen. Accordingly, Andy got a translation of the radiologist’s report and discovered that it was actually pancreatic cancer.

‘Maybe they don’t like to mention that it’s pancreatic cancer,’ explains Andy. ‘If you google pancreatic cancer it’s tough reading.’ Andy was lucky. He had a very specific kind of pancreatic cancer – neuro-endocrine: the same kind, says Andy, ‘that Steve Jobs had.’

‘I went to a private doctor and he said “There’s no point doing a biopsy” and “you should start chemo with me.” But English friends said I shouldn’t do that.’

A network of English friends had been researching pancreatic cancer for Andy, something he’d avoided doing himself in order to stay positive. It later turned out that Andy’s tumor was ‘the size of a small football’. The advice he got was that if it was possible to find a surgeon to take it on, then he should. “I later found chemo was also amazingly effective but we didn’t know that when it was decision time. We decided to go the surgical route.”

They found a private surgeon in Nottingham, in the English Midlands, called Mr. Ian Cameron who thought he could treat Andy’s cancer. Fortuitously, Andy had actually taken out private cancer insurance just after returning from Greece. Andy sent him his x-ray by DHL, Mr Cameron replied that, ‘it doesn’t look like normal pancreatic cancer’ meaning that he might be able to help, saying, ‘It looks treatable.’

A Finnair flight from Helsinki meant that Andy was in Nottingham the next day for a biopsy. ‘They said, “Let’s operate” and by 28^th May 2009 I was already clear of cancer in the pancreas.’

It was the biggest pancreatic tumor the surgeon had ever removed. The whole process, since being officially diagnosed, had taken about a month. But Andy was still seriously ill.

‘I still had secondary cancer of the liver and this is where Finland was fantastic and really pushed the boat out,’ he enthuses, speculating that this may have been because they had messed-up regarding the original cancer. ‘They removed 55 percent of my liver in a five hour operation. And the liver regenerates, so I now have the liver of a young man!’ he laughs. And that op was only made possible by the chemo treatment I got in Helsinki (to reduce the growths). If that hadn’t of worked I would have been a goner.”

Andy & Sari in Rome this autumn

Comparing the Finnish health care system to the English one, Andy feels that the English system is much better in the early stages. ‘The waiting time over here is crazy,’ he states. ‘You have to wait a long time to be seen and all that time the cancer is spreading. In Britain, they have targets so you’re seen more quickly. But, in Finland, once you’re in the pipe of treatment then its better. I was being treated 3 times a week. And the follow-up treatment has been superb.’

Andy finally got the all clear on Christmas Day 2009 and his case was made public by ‘Private Healthcare UK’ last week.

‘My father died of asbestos cancer when he was 63,’ Andy tells me. ‘The last lesson he taught me was how to die.’

‘I didn’t want my kids to say, “Our dad was this really positive guy, until he got this awful cancer.”’

Andy tells me that mice do better under chemo if they’re positive and surrounded by their friends.  ”Until I got cancer I always had a sneaking feeling my really closest friends were in the UK. How wrong I was; I saw how adversity brings out the best in Finns. Neighbours we hardly knew would arrive at our door with a hot meal for the family. It still makes me cry – that kindness. And we now have more friends as a result.”

Andy’s not religious, but battling with cancer. he desperately tried to see the good in his life.

‘I’d had a happy life with a lot of love in it,’ he told me. Surely, dying in your forties, having lived such a life, was better than ‘being miserable but living until 93.’