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Ian Adkins

Tasha's Team - Ian's Page

Total raised

£975.00

+ £196.25 Gift Aid

39%% Complete
39% of the £2,500.00 target
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2018 Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100

Sun 29 Jul 2018

I am raising funds to support my daughter Tasha and to help in the fight against melanoma.

My Story

I am raising funds for Cancer Research UK to support my daughter Tasha and to help in the fight against melanoma. Tasha has benefited enormously from new treatments that are emerging now from ongoing research. Indeed, the combined immunotherapy that Tasha has received had only been available outside of trials for 6 weeks before she was given them. They have shrunk most of her tumours so that they no longer show up on scans. However, she still has a big fight on her hands as the cancer continues to spread to places where the immunotherapy struggles to get - principally the central nervous system (her brain and spine). So please help me to help her and the vital research which will save countless others in the future. Thank you. TASHA'S STORY Tasha's melanoma story started when she was 14 with a mole on her arm which was diagnosed as malignant melanoma. She had surgery to remove it but just before her 17th birthday the cancer returned in the lymph nodes in one arm. More surgery to remove those nodes followed with a 3-week course of radiotherapy. Following A levels and her first 2 years of university she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic melanoma; the cancer had spread to multiple locations around her body. This was at the start of her third year at Exeter University. In November 2016 she began a new treatment called combined immunotherapy. Every 3 weeks she went from Exeter back home to Bath then to Oxford for treatment with 2 drugs. After 4 treatments it dropped to a single drug given every fortnight. Long term steroid courses were required to cope with the side effects of the drugs with all the downsides of steroid use. Despite this Tasha completed her degree and graduated with her peers. In Summer 2017 she was diagnosed with a tumour in her brain and underwent stereo-tactic radiosurgery (SRS) which has greatly shrunk the tumour. The challenges kept coming in 2018: firstly a tumour in her foot which was growing into the bones; then a week in hospital with meningitis; during that stay they discovered a new tumour in her spinal chord. The foot tumour was removed through surgery along with a little toe. She had SRS on her spine but 2 weeks later she was rushed to hospital in agony and had emergency surgery on her spine to remove the tumour. Weeks of rehab will follow and hopefully resumption of the immunotherapy. Throughout her journey she has been supported by many amazing people. Central to her fight has been immunotherapy and SRS which have shrunk most of her tumours and given her a chance that wasn't available until recently. Let's make these treatments even better and support Tasha in her fight.

CAUSE

Melanoma

Around 42 people in the UK are diagnosed with malignant melanoma (the most serious form of skin cancer) every day. Over the last decade malignant melanoma incidence rates have increased by almost a half (45%) in the UK. Help Cancer Research UK find new ways to treat skin cancer.

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Total raised£975.00
Online£975.00
Offline£0.00

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