TURNING 40 is a huge milestone for anyone but for a Solihull mum, who 15 years ago was told she had just months to live, it was monumental.
Jo Kelly was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma aged 22 when she had just graduated from university and three years later she was told there was nothing more that could be done for her, and her illness was terminal.
But now after a life-saving stem cell transplant Jo is gearing up ready to take on the British Transplant Games in Oxford from July 31.
She was inspired to take up track cycling in 2012 after watching the London Olympics while she was having her transplant as part of her treatment.
There was a little pedal machine at the hospital which she would sit on and pedal while watching the Olympics, until she eventually became too weak and fatigued to move the pedals.
“I got more and more unwell”, she says, “because the more suppressed with the drugs and the treatment, the more tired you become. I could hardly move the pedals in the end.”
It took Jo four years following her transplant to be well enough to take up the sport but when she did she found she had a real talent for it. She joined a cycling group at the velodrome in Manchester, where they lived at the time, and she ‘completely got the bug’.
She and her husband would take touring trips and cycle 100s of miles a time.
One day, a friend suggested she sign up for the British Transplant Games.
It took a few years before she actually did, as she was pregnant or breastfeeding for a few years and then Covid hit, but in 2023 and 2024 she won Gold in the road race category.
She has upped her game for 2025 and is training hard, is part of a club in Solihull and really wants to go for a gold again.
“I have never been this fit before and I’ve never been this mentally fit either. I feel a huge responsibility to keep my body in shape since my transplant and to do the best I can with it on a daily basis.”
Her advice to anyone facing a blood cancer diagnosis is overall to remain positive.
“The medical interventions today are amazing but there are a lot of things along the way that are going to happen that will really worry you and scare you.
“But most of it can be managed. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“But I’m here to tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“I have a different perspective now. I do still sweat the small stuff but actually when I’m doing that I know life is good because I’m not worrying about the big stuff.”
