'Miracle' Scot who beat rare throat cancer achieves 10k goal

After a round of chemotherapy to shrink it, he had an invasive operation called an esophagectomy with a stomach pull-up to remove it.

Mr Brennan’s stomach now sits much higher in his chest cavity.

The part-time IT specialist - who is 5ft 11 inches tall - was a keen hillwalker and singer before his diagnosis, but saw his weight plunge to just eight and a half stone.

It took Mr Brennan nearly 13 years to build up the stamina necessary to take part in the Dundonald Highland Games 10k run, but on August 2 he completed the gruelling race in just 56 minutes and raised £1,300 for Ayrshire cancer support. 

Speaking on behalf of her husband, Rev Lynsey Brennan said: “I call Stephen my ‘walking miracle’ because he has overcome such a challenging cancer diagnosis when the odds were stacked against him – a miracle by the grace of God.”

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Mrs Brennan, who has been the minister of Dundonald Parish Church in South Ayrshire since 2019 - where her husband is also an elder - said most people are unaware of the extent of his cancer ordeal.

His form of the disease - Adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus - has a very poor survival rate as symptoms tend to go unnoticed until it has spread.

Mr Brennan, who has never smoked, only had one symptom – problems swallowing - and had not experienced any of the other recognised signs such as weight loss, fatigue or heartburn.

Stephen and Lynsey Brennan with sons Samuel and Ciaran during Mr Brennan's treatment (Image: Collect/Church of Scotland)

Rev Brennan was around eight months pregnant with their second son, Ciaran, when her husband was diagnosed.

She said: “Stephen is a quiet, calm and modest man and does not tell people much about what he's been through.

“It was a very traumatic period in our lives but he has a strong Christian faith and he never felt sorry for himself and managed instead to radiate peace despite his circumstances.

“After his diagnosis, he said to me, ‘I've had a wonderful upbringing, have fabulous parents and I never thought I was going to get married and I met you.

“I never thought I was going to have children and I've got Samuel and we've got another baby on the way.

“If God is calling me back home now and I have to leave you and the children, who am I to argue?

“Who knows what he's got in store for me.”

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Mr Brennan, who is now a part-time house husband to support his wife’s calling as a parish minister, complained of feeling unwell during a Mother’s Day dinner in March 2010.

“He started to clutch his sternum and was in a lot of pain and discomfort,” said Rev Brennan.

“At the time I was working as a speech and language therapist at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Hospital in Glasgow and I was very concerned so I told him to go and see his GP who then organised for him to have an endoscopy.

“For some reason the results of the scan did not register with Stephen who seemed to think there was nothing to worry about but I read the letter for his GP and had to tell him that they had found a big tumour at the bottom of his oesophagus going into his stomach and it was cancer.

“I was heavily pregnant at the time and mum to a toddler and I just remember my world going into a sort of spiral because I knew what the general prognosis was in terms of the amount of time people have left after being diagnosed.”

Stephen Brennan with youngest son, Malachi, now six (Image: Collect/Church of Scotland)

As his tumour was too large to remove, Mr Brennan - who is now 46 - underwent three months of chemotherapy to shrink it prior to surgery.

He was told that he would have died if he had waited a week or two longer before going to his GP. 

Rev Brennan said she believed that the family experienced three miracles.

She said: “The first one was that Stephen lived with someone who recognised the symptoms of oesophageal cancer and he got to the hospital in time for treatment.

“The second was that the medics found no other positive lymph nodes in his body after the tumour was removed, and the third was the birth of our third son, Malachi, seven years later because we were told the chemotherapy treatment could cause infertility."

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The couple were living in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire at the time of Mr Brennan’s diagnosis and attended Killermont Parish Church.

Rev Brennan said the love and support shown by church members there and at St Silas Church in Glasgow - where the couple met and married - was "outstanding".