I am Shiona and have been living with stage 4 melanoma since Mar 2017. This May (Melanoma Awareness Month) Team Shomelanoma (myself, friends and family) will be skipping for 10 mins every day to raise funds for melanoma research at the Royal Marsden to help them continue to develop pioneering life saving  cancer treatments. The care I receive from the team there is outstanding and is keeping me alive. I am forever grateful to my Oncologist Prof James Larkin and the amazing melanoma team.   

As little as 5-10 years ago a stage 4 melanoma diagnosis had a prognosis of 6 to 9 months. This was often shorter if like me the melanoma had travelled to the brain which has an even worse prognosis. Fortunately in the last 5 years new immunotherapy drugs and targeted treatment have changed the outlook for some patients but immunotherapy only works for 40 - 50 % of patients and the melanoma often develops resistance to targeted treatments so whilst progress has been made there is still much more work to be done as all too often patients still succumb to this awful disease. 

In the last 4 years I have been treated with immunotherapy (ipi/nivo) but following a relapse in Dec 2017, I have been taking daily targeted treatment (Debrafenib and Trametinib) which has been keeping my melanoma under control. I write a blog to raise awareness of melanoma and you can read the full story of my ups and downs of living life with melanoma in my blog www.shomelanoma.com.

The last year has been particularly challenging for charities as many of their fundraising events have been cancelled and they have experienced a drop in funding which has had a significant effect on research. Team Shomelanoma is excited (some more than others ) to be picking  up their skipping ropes showing off their tricks and help raising funds for the melanoma team. All funds raised from this challenge will go 100% directly to the melanoma research fund at the Royal Marsden and will be allocated to fund further life saving research. Full details of the projects funded are included in my blog.