Justine's Giving Page

Back in 2013 my husband starting to experience difficulty swallowing food, he went to the doctors and they suspected a hernia, they sent him for an endoscopy and it revealed something more sinister, fast forward 2 weeks and he was diagnosed with stage 3/4 oesophageal cancer. Our world fell apart, we had never even heard of this type of cancer. We started to do some research and the findings were shocking, it is the 13th most common cancer in adults and affects more men than woman, and tends to affect them later in life, my husband was just 48 at the time. The survival rates are not that good due to the fact that by the time you get any symptoms it has normally spread to other organs. My husband was lucky enough that it hadn't spread. After two cycles of chemotherapy and a marathon operation to remove the oesophagus and reconstruct the stomach he survived, that was coming up to 6 years ago this July. Due to Cancer Research UK the continued studies are increasing survival rates after this horrible disease so I am doing my bit to help with fundraising by abseiling down the Francis Crick Institute on Saturday 1st June. If you do get any prolonged symptoms of reflux, heartburn, acid indigestion a chronic cough or hoarness please get this checked out, it could be nothing but better to be safe than sorry.