Couple Find Out They Won £2 Million Jackpot Then Learn Son Is Free of Cancer Days Later

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For a British couple from County Durham in the north of England, it was a Christmas present of a lifetime. John and Allison McDonald of Stockton-on-Tees had had a rough year, especially since their youngest son Ewan was still waiting for the all-clear from the doctors after a year of cancer treatment.

Yet within days, they not only discovered that they had won the 2 million pound (US$2,513,320) national lottery jackpot, but also that their son Ewan, 15, was declared cancer-free after a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

When the McDonalds heard the good news, they could barely believe what was happening. As Allison McDonald told the Daily Mail, “It’s been the worst and hardest year of our lives but 2020 is going to be so different.”

For his part, John McDonald described the experience to the BBC, “All of our lifelong dreams came true in the space of three days.”

The McDonalds, who have two children besides Ewan, as well as three grandchildren, have always been modest and hardworking. John McDonald, 62, worked as a security guard, oftentimes getting up at 4 a.m. to go to work and pulling shifts of 70 hours in one week. “I started working when I was 15 years old, on my 15th birthday, and worked long, long hours my whole life,” he said in a press conference.

Allison McDonald, 49, worked full-time at an optician’s office until their Ewan was found to have cancer. After noticing that their son’s glands were extremely swollen, the parents took him to see the doctor. “It took a while to diagnose him and of course it was a terrible and difficult time, but Ewan never complained,” she shared.

Allison took leave from work in order to help support her son through six long rounds of chemotherapy at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. Neither of the McDonalds expected that a “Lucky Dip” lottery ticket, one in which the numbers are already chosen for the buyer, would come up winning.

As for Allison, she happened to be at the dentist when her husband called. She was waiting for news about Ewan’s cancer status and was momentarily concerned that something bad might have happened. “Never did I believe when I called him back he would be telling me we had won the Lotto Jackpot,” she shared.

That day, John happened to check his ticket on his work break. “I quickly realized I had matched two numbers and I thought great—this means I have won a Lucky Dip,” he recalled. “But as I continued to check I realized I had matched all six.”

Then just days later, the family got another call, this time from the doctor while they were in the car headed for shopping. “It was just the most wonderful news—we'd have given up every penny for Ewan to be clear,” his mom said.

“It is fantastic that this win has not only given us the financial security to buy a lovely new family home—but also time,” John said. The family plans to make up for what they had missed out on the previous year. “I think we'll try and pick up where we left off,” John said.

In addition to camping trips, Allison hopes to visit Italy, a longstanding dream of hers, as well as see the Northern Lights. “We don’t have to get up at 4am in the morning,” John added. “We can take our time, enjoy life, slow down, and just enjoy things.”