Yvonne's 10K Swimming Fundraiser for Cancer Research UK

The past year has been quite the roller coaster for the Quinn family... 12 months ago, I was diagnosed with cervical cancer - it was the scariest news of my life, and has completely changed me forever. Just when we'd received the good news that I was in remissions 3 months ago, we received some more devastating news - my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Unfortunately, cancer touches so many of us. In my case, some of us are lucky to catch it early. In my dad's case, the journey ahead is much tougher. Over the years there have been so many advancements made towards treating many types of cancer and without this life saving research, my diagnosis might not have been as straight forward as it was just 5 or 10 years ago when cerival cancer carried a much higher mortality rate. And the drugs today that are helping my dad's fight to slow the spread of his cancer wouldn't even have been on the market without CRUK fighting to find new ways to battle the many strains of cancer affecting us. I feel compelled not only to raise awareness of self checking your body and advocating for yourself if you think something isn't right - but I want to be able to do more and help amazing charities like CRUK to help more families from being devastated by this disease, just like they've help my family. Today, I know far too many people touched by Cancer. Myself, my dad, both my grandparents and two close friends and that's just in my immediate circle - Cancer won't stop, but we can fight it with each new breakthrough. So in the words of my dad, we're going to 'keep the high balls low' and keep marching on doing what we can. For me, this means swimming 10K in August and trying to raise any much money as I can so if you've got this far, I'd really appreciate if you could help me raise funds and donate towards this cause. I'm eternally grateful for whatever you can spare. Y x