Lizzie's Race for Life

My sister-in-law Kathy's story... ...”I was diagnosed with grade 3, triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma May 2018. What I thought was a blocked milk duct was a 7cm tumour, the cancer had spread to my axillery lymph nodes and behind my collar bone. I was 32 at the time and my son was 14 weeks old. I was offered a trial drug which I was accepted for and started this alongside weekly chemotherapy 4 weeks after diagnosis in the June. I finished chemo in November and it was successful! The chemo had shrunk the tumour enough to have lumpectomy and lymph node clearance instead of a mastectomy. I had my op in December and after post-op check ups I started radiotherapy at the end of January, having 22 sessions and finishing at the end of February. Without the research and continuous striving for answers and new treatments my story could have been very different. I feel incredibly lucky to live in a time where we know about cancers and treatments and different approaches but we need to know more, we need survival rates to rise, we need more treatments, targeted treatments, and we need those treatments to be available to everybody, now. We need to know that our children and young people will have more options, better options, faster diagnosis, treatment that isn’t as aggressive on the whole body, and the support and knowledge to catch cancers early and to survive!” Cancer is happening right now, which is why I'm taking part in a Race for Life 5k to raise money and save lives. 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Every single pound you donate makes a difference to Cancer Research UK’s groundbreaking work, so please sponsor me now.