Pancreatic Cancer & My Marathon Challenge
Paul Cully is raising money for Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund
In memory of Roger Cully
Story
Unfortunately, time all to quickly passes, and it’s sadly already been three and half years since my lovely Dad, Roger Cully OBE, passed away from pancreatic cancer. Dad went into the hospital to have a routine lump cut out from his nose, they noticed his heart was acting strangely, he had some tests and unfortunately, he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and died only three weeks later.
For many types of cancer, survival rates have been improving:
- 95% of men diagnosed with testicular cancer now survive 5 years or more.
- 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer now survive 5 years or more.
For pancreatic
cancer, this is NOT the case:
- Only 5% of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survive 5 years or more. This statistic has barely changed in 30 years!
- Each year nearly 10,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
- It is the fifth most common cause of cancer death.
- There is no early detection test and treatment is limited. Because symptoms are initially vague and generally don’t’ appear until the disease is well advanced, the average survival time after diagnosis is 6 months. (This was so true with Dad).
- Despite the especially lethal nature of this disease, research is underfunded compared with other types of cancer.
On a brighter note, rather excitedly (or maybe with total dread and in trepidation given I have never run over 10K before, although am training hard! 😊) I have been luckily enough to draw a place in the London Marathon for October 2nd 2022, through my company, TfL. Although I have secured a place, I would still like to use it as an opportunity to remember dad, as well as raise money to aid the research of pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund is the only national charity exclusively funding research into pancreatic cancer throughout the UK. They want to change the odds in the fight against pancreatic cancer and you can find more out more about them and this horrible disease at www.pcrf.org.uk
If you wish to, I would be grateful for your support to my challenge and combating this disease through any money that you can donate to sponsor me in completing my challenge.
Many thanks and kind regards, Paul x