Stenhousemuir cancer survivor's 2022 mile cycle challenge

Not only did John Dirom (57) complete his four-year mission to visit all 68 inhabited islands of Scotland, he also managed to bring his cycling mileage total up to 1400 miles and the funds raised for Blood Cancer UK to almost £12,000.

The retired community psychiatric nurse from Stenhousemuir began his fund raising endeavours in the 1990s when his uncle sadly died from cancer.

John has also lost his mum Betty and brother Ian to cancer.

Then four years ago he was hit by another bombshell when he himself was diagnosed with a form of leukaemia.

"I was lucky because it was a form of cancer where the prognosis was good. I had an intensive course of chemo in April last year and then I got sepsis, which saw me in hospital for 11 days.”

It was during this time John came up with the idea of raising funds for Blood Cancer UK – a charity formed in 1960 which has invested over £500 million in blood cancer research and is dedicated to supporting those with blood cancer.

"So I’m in remission and still getting hospital appointments to keep an eye on it and do blood tests – there’s no cure for leukaemia, but they hope it will stay in background.

"There are a lot of cancer’s that are not treatable so I wanted to do something to raise funds for research into them. I signed up for a charity cycle in Cuba, but that was postponed for a couple of years due to COVID-19.

"I thought, why not do something that will last a whole year?”

That’s when the 2022 miles in 2022 idea was born.

Not only has John been averaging an impressive 250 miles per month, he has also been organised fundraising events in Stenhousemuir Cricket Club, which thanks to raffle and auction donations from people and businesses, including LOC Hire, coined in over £7000 for the cause.

When he’s not adventuring in Shetland, John is clocking up the cycle miles wherever and whenever he can.

"I did 20 miles this morning,” said John. “Just because my van was in Denny being repaired. I’m 57 now though so I’ve got to watch myself.”

He will be heading to Arran later this year for a holiday with family which will see him on the bike again and, of course, he will have the much delayed Cuba trip in October – where he may reach the 2022 milestone and, hopefully, coin in a lot more cash for Blood Cancer UK.

John said: “It’s getting to the stage there are good treatment outcomes for quite a lot of forms of leukaemia and you want to have those kind of outcomes for other forms too.

"It shows you how far the treatments have come – if my mum was diagnosed nowadays her cancer probably would not have been fatal.”

Visit John’s Just Giving Page for updates on his progress.