I’m asking for your donations so I feel I should explain why!

As friends and family will know I was due to run London Marathon in 2024 for Brain Research UK after finding out a few days after my 30th birthday that I had a shadow in the centre of my brain - after multiple MRI scans back and forth from Kings Hospital, my neurosurgeon confirmed it was benign lesion on my pineal gland and despite the size, my spinal fluid was still flowing well. Due to where it is, the surgery to remove it comes with its own risk plus the risk that ‘disturbing’ the tumour could cause it to grow back more aggressive, so weighing it up the decision was made to monitor for now. It may be that if it grows or my symptoms worsen in the future we will have no option to remove it but it currently seems stable. I still often suffer with migraines and everything that comes with that, the forgetfulness, the tiredness, the irritability but there is nothing to say that surgery will stop that for definite.

Anyway, because of this I wanted to try and raise money for Brain Research UK and they gave me the opportunity to run London Marathon 2024 - I had started training and a few months in, after a very cold beach run, I found myself struggling to breathe and was taken to hospital. My heart rate was 224 beats per minute, my lungs were inflamed and I was kept in due to having increased cardiac enzymes. Whilst in the hospital a nurse noticed a mole on my back and I was put on an urgent cancer path, I was seen the next day and the decision was made to bypass the usual biopsies and go straight to surgery. The results come back and unfortunately it was, as they suspected, cancer (a malignant melanoma) and the margins were larger than hoped. This meant I needed an additional surgery to remove more of the muscle on my back along with my lymph nodes to see if the cancer had spread to any other organs in my body - this was even more scary due to the recent issues with my lungs and brain and the fear they could all be linked. This was extremely tough, mentally and physically and not just for myself but for everyone around me. This was also a month before I was due to run the marathon so I had no choice but to pull out and my place was deferred to 2025. After my surgery I thankfully got the news that my surgeon managed to remove all of the cancer and I was given the all clear a year to the day after my brain tumour diagnosis. It felt like the end to an extremely challenging year. I still have weekly hospital appointments for a number of things like physiotherapy and regular check ups but I realise how lucky I’ve been.

So, I’m going to give running London Marathon 2025 a good go and what’s even more exciting, so is my Dad! We’re running together for Brain Research UK! We know how incredible this charity has been to me. So please sponsor us / donate - we’ll be so grateful and it will be another miracle if we make it across that finish line!

I’m a big believer in things happening for a reason and if I wasn’t training for the marathon at the start of 2024, if I didn’t go for a run on that day, I believe I would still not know about the cancer now, or worse, as my cancer nurse recently reminded me, it may have been too late. Most people don’t know this but Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer and is one of the fastest spreading cancers there is, it can spread around your body and become life threatening in as little as 6 weeks so I know how lucky I am to have caught it and now I’m looking forward to Race day with Dad on 27th April 2025, with all of my family and friends supporting like they have through everything! X