We are The Christie magazine March 2025 Staff edition

Patient stories

David Ly

David Ly has turned his proton beam therapy mask into a piece of art to celebrate the end of his treatment.

45-year-old David, who lives in London with his partner Ian, was diagnosed with a chordoma, a rare bone cancer, in 2020. He initially went to the opticians

with double vision, thinking he might need glasses, but the optician noticed something was wrong and sent him to hospital. Several scans and tests later, he was told he had a 23mm tumour at the base of his skull. He had to have three operations to remove as much of the tumour as possible before he could be referred to The Christie for proton beam therapy – a type of specialist radiotherapy. It targets tumours using high-energy protons which are shaped into a beam. David had 41 sessions of daily proton beam therapy at The Christie. His treatment finished in February 2021 and all subsequent scans have shown his cancer is stable. Making the mask was a way of processing what had happened to him and celebrating the progress he’s made.

David said: “I had my treatments during the COVID lockdown and it was a really difficult time for me. Being creative with my mask is my way of taking a dark experience and making it bright and beautiful. It includes the scar from the operation I had on my skull and the silver spikes on the top represent the protons treating my tumour. I called it my warrior armour during treatment and now it really looks like that.” “I keep it in my living room and it’s a reminder of just how far I’ve come. I recently brought it up to the proton beam therapy centre to show my team, which meant a lot to me. They are just brilliant, I can’t praise them enough.” Turning his own mask into art is just the start for David. He added: “One day I hope to collect photos of beautiful and creative masks that other people have done and make a display of them.”

Proton beam therapy is only suitable for the routine treatment of a small number of people with certain cancer types, such as where the tumour is close to the brain or spinal cord. Standard radiotherapy using X-rays is also a targeted and highly effective treatment for most cancers.

"Being creative with my mask is my way of taking a dark experience and making it bright and beautiful"

20