21-04-2025
‘The diagnosis of my spinal tumour is terminal... I aim to prove them wrong'
At the end of 2024 Belfast man Matthew Starkey had so much to look forward to.
A new teaching job, a new home, a new car and the prospect of getting married to his fiancée.
But what started out as a seemingly innocuous football injury sent his life down a path he never could have imagined.
He is still looking forward, but the 32-year-old's plans never included gruelling treatment for cancer.
The prognosis isn't good. Doctors say he may have just a year. But positivity remains.
He's not sitting back, despite spending more than a month in hospital since March rather than teaching at St Colman's Sixth Form College in Ballynahinch, after his temporary contract was made permanent.
Indeed, everything about his situation since that moment has been fast.
'Life's really throwing everything at me,' he said.
While Matthew, who teaches business, IT and PE at St Colman's, will remain in hospital until his round of intensive treatment ends, he's ready to throw everything back at life once he gets out — starting with getting into his new home with fiancée Carrie Fleming.
By September he hopes to take part in the Belfast Half Marathon in a wheelchair to raise funds for the Friends of the Cancer Centre.
He said: 'A couple of months ago I was an able-bodied man, I went to the gym four times a week.
'I'd been playing seven-a-side football and came home with a sore leg. I thought I must have pulled a muscle.
'When the pain refused to go away you think of things like deep vein thrombosis.
'My foot was discoloured, the veins in my leg were standing out.'
Several visits to the doctor followed, and eventually a collapsed valve at the top of his leg was diagnosed.
It was corrected, other tests were clear, but the pain just refused to go away.
'I just felt something was wrong,' he said.
'I can remember buying flowers for Carrie before Valentine's Day and completely losing control of my right leg, falling into the window of the shop.'
It got to the stage where Matthew couldn't walk.
'I had shocking pain, I couldn't go to the toilet, my stomach was so large I looked pregnant,' he explained.
'On February 13 my mum took me to hospital. I had an MRI scan and that's when they found a 3cm tumour through my spinal cord which would require urgent surgery.'
He was operated on the next day, St Valentine's Day.
'I had been planning to ask Carrie to marry me, maybe in a year or so. In March I just went for it. We got engaged.'
But a day after she said 'yes', the pain returned to his leg. A further MRI scan revealed the news he had been dreading.
Just three weeks after his surgery, the tumour had grown back. Matthew has been in hospital since March 16.
'I've just completed 20 of the 30 treatments — I'm told I have been responding well,' he said.
As he undergoes his ordeal, Carrie has been busy, with a wedding set for June and changes made to the house they bought together.
There's also a wish-list of memories he wants to make — places to visit and things to do.
Central to it all is fundraising for cancer charities, with one of his main targets the Belfast event in September.
His wheelchair effort, he hopes, can contribute to his aim of raising £100,000.
There's also those nuptials in the summer, and dreams of foreign travel.
Matthew added: 'We both love Italy and have been there separately. We'd love to go together.
'And we're looking into going to see the Northern Lights. It's the medical insurance that's the real problem.'
A GoFundMe page has raised more than £40,000 and a training schedule has been drawn up to get ready for the half marathon.
Along with Carrie, Matthew said his parents have been hugely supportive.
'My mum Fiona had breast cancer a few years ago and has been right with me through all of this,' he explained.
'We've beaten cancer as a family before and we can do it again.'
That positive, can-do attitude shines through.
'I might not make it back to school before the summer, but I plan to be there in September,' he said.
In the meantime he'll be rejoining a gym, with fellow St Colman's teacher Stephen Conlon as a personal trainer.
'Stephen has worked with people with cerebral palsy. He's drawing up a plan for me so I can get used to the fitted wheelchair and get myself into shape,' Matthew said.
'Yes, my life has completely changed. There are moments when you come out of your treatment and you feel so ill. But I have a wonderful support network.
'I have the social media platforms to tell things like they are and hopefully get the message out there that no matter how insignificant you feel a pain or an issue is, you get it checked. That's what I did.
'The tumour may be fast-growing, but I'm here in the middle of getting the treatment and I'm staying positive that I'll come out the other side, get married, get into my new home and get back to teaching.'
You have to stay positive, keep looking forward, he says.
'The diagnosis was terminal — I aim to prove them wrong,' he added.
