A man who was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer completed a half-marathon.<br /><br />Callan Rogers, 28, ran a half-marathon in March despite being about to enter his sixth round of chemotherapy treatment.<br /><br />Callan, from Stratford in London, was diagnosed at the age of 26.<br /><br />When his latest round of treatment stopped working, he decided to run a half-marathon and completed it in two hours and 29 minutes.<br /><br />Callan, a fire safety officer, said: "I've always been good at running without really trying. <br /><br />"I didn't even train for the Brentwood half!<br /><br />"I did one 5k run and a 10k run before the race and thought that would do me. <br /><br />"I don't like to think of it the way others might have a strategy. I just want to run."<br /><br />Callan was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer in September 2022 after finding a lump.<br /><br />By the time Callan was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread to 14 different areas in his body including his lungs. <br /><br />He said: "Before starting some of the toughest rounds of chemo, my doctor told me it had a 25% chance of working and if it didn't that would be kind of it for me.<br /><br />"I asked how long I'd have left if it didn't work and the doctors said it would be a year, maybe two years max, which is not the news you want."<br /><br />Callan underwent surgery and several rounds of chemotherapy for 10 months, which brought him into remission in June 2023.<br /><br />He dealt with extreme side effects during his treatment, dropping from 84kg to 54kg in just two weeks due to mouth sores making it impossible for him to eat.<br /><br />He also went partially blind as a result of burst blood vessels in his eyes and to this day deals with significant nerve damage in his hands and feet.<br /><br />Callan said: "I lived in the hospital for basically all of May 2023 and when I came out on June 4th, I was in remission.<br /><br />"I spent six or seven months just gaining weight, forcing myself to eat and just recovering."<br /><br />Six months into his remission and during his first week back at work, Callan discovered that the cancer had returned.<br /><br />He begun his fifth round of chemotherapy but when the treatment stopped working, he set himself the challenge to run a half-marathon. <br /><br />He said: "I used to train MMA before I got sick and I am doing it now again, but the mentality of 'no pain, no gain' which I learnt from fighting really kept me going.<br /><br />"I don't know if I've got something wrong with me, but I just don't see the point in worrying about what could go wrong.<br /><br />"Life can be really unfair but you just have to get on with it sometimes."<br /><br />Callan is set to begin his sixth treatment on June 10th, which is the first human trial of an experimental drug called BNT-142.<br /><br />The trial will investigate the potential use of this drug as a treatment for participants with solid tumours that express a protein called Claudin-6.<br /><br />BNT-142 instructs the immune cells to recognise Claudin-6 on the solid tumour and possibly destroy the cancer cells.<br /><br />Callan said: "I felt like a VIP when I went in for tests for the new treatment. <br /><br />"I think there's about 388 people in Europe and the US combined who are taking part.<br /><br />"The staff just seem super excited whenever I'm there, and it makes me excited too."
