I will be doing more as part of Team Sarcoma, including the Santa in the City run in London, so watch this space!

Thanks to everyone for all their support for my marathon fundraising activities! In particular all the people who supported the various events at Royal Wootton Bassett Cricket and Hockey Clubs and Lansdown Hockey Club who helped raise such a huge sum of money for a great cause. I completed the marathon in 3:42:37, it was a great experience and awesome to meet so many of the other Team Sarcoma runners.

Sarcoma is a type of cancer that develops in the bone and soft tissue. It is difficult to diagnose and one of the hardest to treat. By supporting me, we can help change this. Over 55% of people don’t make it 5 years past their diagnosis. Sadly in April 2009 my mum became one of the 55%.

It all started innocuously with an accident where she got her arm trapped in a door at home. After some weeks what the GP thought was a deep bruise hadn’t gone away and started growing alarmingly into a lump that was almost the size of a cricket ball before it was finally surgically removed many months later. 

The multidisciplinary team at Newcastle, led by the brilliant Mani Ragbi, gave my mum almost complete use of her arm back through a pioneering surgery to implant muscle from her back at the removal site. Despite this the cancer returned after a year in remission having spread to her lungs. Due to her age surgery wasn’t an option and following some harrowing chemotherapy there was no more that could be done. She passed away at home .

A few years later my former colleague, a wonderful man called Justin Hicks, (occasionally know as Mr Tumble for his resemblance to the famous entertainer) broke his arm and found that he had cancer…Sarcoma. Similar to my mum he was in remission for a while and then the cancer returned. After seeing another positive post updating us about the next steps in his fight one of the lads passed on the devastating news that Justin had passed away just a few days later in July  2021. Justin was one of the friendliest and most positive people I ever met. In my mind this triggered me to think that I should do something else to honour my Mums memory, to honour his memory and raise awareness of this terrible disease. 

Your donations will go so far in helping the sarcoma community: Just £1 could cover the cost of 10 texts to the support line. £10 buys the microscope slides and lab supplies needed for detailed cellular analysis; £30 funds an hour’s research on a high-powered lab microscope; and £150 could help fund the support line for a week.