Luke Matthewson

I would like to nominate my son,Luke who in May 2009 was diagnosed with large cell lymphoma. This was a huge shock to us as a family and we thought our world had collapsed. Luke handled it the best out of all of us. Luke has an older brother and a younger sister. Luke went through 7 months of extremely intensive treatment. He never once complained about all the invasion to his beautiful perfect body. We were in and out of hospital almost continuously. Once we went onto the ward for our next treatment and there wasn't a bed for him ward and we ended up sleeping virtually in the corridoor. As his mother I was really upset but he just kept saying it wasn't that bad. He always saw the bright side of things even on sure dire circumstances. We are now 17 months out of treatment and go back to Sick Childrens Hospital in Edinburgh regularly. The hospital are always fantastic. He now always lives life to the full and nothing stops him doing anything. He desperately wanted to be in our local competitive swimming club. The head coach intially said he couldn't be in the club as he wasn't quite good enough and would not make an allowance for him. Eventually with much begging he was given a chance and now he is one of the best swimmers in his squad purely down to is effort and determination. I'm really proud of Luke not just because he is my son but because he has handled his illness with great dignity and courage. Please consider him to be part of carrying the Olympic flame.