Team Linda!

We're raising as much as we can to beat cancer

Story

Cancer has touched our lives far too often and we've sadly lost too many of our family over the last few years. Grandad in 2014 to lung cancer, Eric in 2017 and Mick in 2018 both to prostate cancer, David in 2022 to stomach cancer and then most recently Dinesh earlier this year also to this terrible disease. Their loss has hit us all hard and we miss them all. Mum has been the lucky one. Mum & Dad had been contacted to take part in the NHS Galleri trial which is a blood test to detect the early signs of cancer. It was a real shock to us all that Mum's results came back positive this year. After a few months of tests, Mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer and needed urgent surgery to remove a sizeable part of her bowel. There were also concerns that the cancer was affecting other areas with the possibility of more extensive surgery and then chemotherapy, luckily this was not the case. The surgery went as well as we could have hoped. The good news is that the tumour has been removed and no further treatment is needed. For now at least, Mum has beaten it! We all feel incredibly lucky that Mum in our eyes 'won the postcode lottery' and was asked to take part in this trial. The scary thing is that there were no symptoms. Had this trial not taken place, she would never have known and the outcome could have been very different. Because of this, we have decided to take part in the Shine Night Walk in London on Saturday 23rd September and will be walking a half marathon to raise money to fund more essential research and trials such as these. We want to help make sure other lives can be saved. We will be walking together as a family of five in memory of the loved ones we have lost, thinking of those still fighting the fight and reminding ourselves how lucky we are that Mum is here walking with us. If you can support us by donating to this important cause please do so. Hopefully one day we can change the odds! Thank you so much! Mum, Dad, Mark, Nicola & Laura x