Vivian Campbell’s cancer battle has taught him the value of trusting his instincts when it comes to his health.
And the Def Leppard guitarist believes it’s a lesson others should learn as early as they can.
His treatment for Hogkin’s lymphoma continues after he was originally misdiagnosed by medics who thought he was suffering from a persistent bug.
Campbell tells 93.3 WMMR: “I remember getting this head cold and flu-like symptoms, and a doctor gave me some antibiotics. Five or six weeks later I had the same thing come back, and the one thing that was constant was this cough that wouldn’t go away.
“My doctor said, ‘Sometimes it takes time for these things to heal up.’ A respiratory doctor gave me an inhaler and nasal spray. I said, ‘This isn’t really getting any better,’ and he’d just give me a stronger inhaler.”
After a year he insisted on an X-ray, which identified there was a more serious problem.
“A very brilliant doctor said she was pretty sure I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” Campbell recalls. “We did a biopsy a couple of days later, and there you go – Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
He reflects: “One thing it taught me is that you really have to advocate for your own health. If you know something’s wrong, even though doctors are very well educated, nobody knows your body like yourself. I knew something was wrong and my doctors just weren’t listening.”
But he adds: “It’s all good. I’ve been dealing with it for a few years now and it is what it is. It’s just a bump in the road.”
Def Leppard last week premiered their track Dangerous from their self-titled 11th album, which will be launched via a Classic Rock fanpack on October 30 – a month ahead of its standard release. They tour the UK in December with Whitesnake and Black Star Riders.
