When his condition didn’t improve, he was referred to A & E where blood tests and X-rays were taken. After spending five days in hospital, he was told that he had stage 4, diffuse large B cell lymphoma, which is a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Kornél began treatment at St Vincent University Hospital in Dublin. He started with chemotherapy but after four sessions, some of his lymph nodes were not responding to treatment and he was moved onto a different form of chemotherapy, R-ICE instead. “This worked to a degree but it didn’t do the job,” he explains.

 “There were little spots in my lungs and in my stomach.” He then had five radiotherapy treatments in St Luke’s Hospital, Dublin, followed by CAR T-cell therapy in St James’s; Kornél was only the seventh patient in the hospital who treated with this innovative immunotherapy at that point. 

“This treatment didn’t hit me too hard,” he says. “I had a bit of a temperature and that was all and no infections.  My tumours were shrinking. I then had a PET scan and I was completely clear.” 

A month later, he began to have problems chewing and was unable to close his mouth fully. He was in and out of hospital and a subsequent PET scan revealed that the cancer had returned. Kornél had more chemotherapy, but his medical team advised him that the next step would be a bone marrow transplant. 

Kornél, who is originally from Hungary and who works in IT in quality assurance moved to Dublin in 2016 with his partner – now wife – Barbara. For the bone marrow transplant, his sister came from Hungary to provide the donor cells. 

“I had to do an amount of preparation, including chemo, and they also inserted a Hickman line,” he says. The side effects of the transplant, which took place in November 2022, were tough and he had severe nausea and vomiting. 
 

He was recovering from the procedure and was feeling quite well as he started to build up his strength, until he developed a cough in March of this year. Tests showed that his cancer had returned in several places. He is receiving chemotherapy now and is also taking steroids. “Currently, it keeps me quite well,” he says. “But I am fighting for my life again.” 

Kornél has used the Irish Cancer Society’s Volunteer Driving service. “I really would like to thank Irish Cancer Society for all their efforts. I have met many volunteers and I always had a nice talk with them even in the toughest situations,” he says. 

“I also wanted to share that cancer is bad of course and it might mean that people like me might die sooner than others, but I have found some positives too. It opens the world, it brings people, who never talked before, and family together; it helps to understand life itself. In my opinion life is about making meaningful connections and leaving good traces. I hope that one day, all cancers will be cured.” 

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