Jay Martin, 47, noticed a lump on his neck in March 2023 but thought it was a swollen gland until it started to get bigger. Two months later, in May 2023, just two days after his third child was born, he went to Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton alongside his wife, Sarah, 38, to get it checked out. Doctors looked down Jay's throat and told him they suspected he had cancer in his tonsil with a biopsy later confirming the diagnosis.
Within two weeks, Jay had an operation to remove one of his tonsils and started six weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in June 2023. After Jay finished the chemotherapy and radiotherapy, a scan showed the cancer had gone from his tonsils but was still in his neck. In February 2024, Jay underwent a throat dissection - an operation to remove 13 lymph nodes, two nerves, and saliva glands.
Jay with his baby. (Image: Sarah Martin/SWNS) He then went another four months without treatment until a scan in June 2024 showed the cancer had spread to his chest and spine - and doctors told the family it was incurable. Jay has now started immunotherapy in the hope it will stabilise the cancer but Sarah admits they don't know what will happen next.
Sarah, a beauty trainer, said: "The hope is that the immunotherapy will stabilise the cancer. "Jay will have the treatment for two years but we're not sure what will happen. "For the first week after finding out the cancer had spread Jay was a mess as you worry about telling the children.
"We had told the children it.