Wed 2nd Jul 2014 - Breaking News - Tim Bacon reveals cancer fight Tim Bacon reveals cancer fight: Tim Bacon, chief executive and co-founder of Living Ventures Group, has talked publicly for the first time since he was diagnosed earlier this year with advanced melanoma of his long fight against cancer. Bacon, 50, who has grown Living Ventures into a business turning over £65m a year and employing 1,300 staff, has been fighting lymphoma for 14 years. Then in January this year he was diagnosed with melanoma as well. In an interview published in the July edition of North West Business Insider, Bacon said: “I got lymphoma in 2000. You get lumps and bumps basically. It’s slow growing. It’s not going to kill me that one. I’ll die an old man. When I got that one it’s a bit shocking to begin with. The first lump I got was in my groin. I kept going to the doctor and didn’t feel well. Eventually I had it removed and it came back as lymphoma. I was 36 and when you first get cancer you think that’s the end of the world and I’ll be dead in a year. As it turned out it was a non-Hodgkin lymphoma vernacular. Nothing much happened for 11 years. They did a bit of radiotherapy on a lump. I did some chemo a couple of years back. Then I had a lump under my arm on holiday last October. In January, I got diagnosed with melanoma, which is a whole lot more serious. It’s internal so it’s not on the skin so they can’t get rid of it. It’s a stage three-plus melanoma and I’m fortunate to be treated by the highly respected Dr Paul Lorigan, at The Christie [the largest cancer centre in Europe, based in Manchester]. It is assumed it started as skin cancer but we can’t find the entry point. There’s no cure for it at the moment. At the time I had two other lumps but it turned out to be lymphoma. When we thought they were all melanoma my wife and I were warned I had six months which was a bit of a reality check.” Bacon told the magazine he wastrialling a drug called Ipilimumab, which is used to treat advanced melanoma. “I lost 10kg in the space of six weeks,” he said. “I had three major operations in four weeks. They’ve got some new stuff coming through so there is a path. It’s like a high wire trapeze act without a safety net. I refuse to get fazed by it. It’s one of those things in life. You do what you do. I’ve changed my diet. I’ve changed my fitness regime.” Bacon said his priority was his wife and two children, aged seven and ten, and things remain “business as usual”. “If the Ipilimumab works I’ll do some more chemo on my lymphoma,” he said. “I did that a couple of years back and kept my hair, so fingers crossed. I don’t ask ‘why me?’ ‘Why not me?’ would be the natural response. It’s business as usual. I’ve gone down to a three-day week. I fundamentally believe if you can find a way through it, you will find a way through it.”