Does My Bum Look Big In This?

In this post I’m going to ask you for money.

Not for me!

Man, who do you think I am? It’s for Cancer research.

On Saturday 21st July me and my mum are running (HA! walking) Race for Life. For anyone who doesn’t know, Race for Life is a women only fundraising event to raise money for Cancer Research. It’s women only because it’s meant to be specifically for breast cancer, but isn’t limited to just breast cancer.

Me and my mum ran it before and it was fantastic. There was a great atmosphere and we always intended to run it again, but this year has been particularly poignant in regards to cancer.

A few years ago a lecturer of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took a year out to go through treatment, and bravely returned to teach. However, after being in remission for about a year, the cancer came back and was deemed inoperable. We were devastated.

One person came to study at the University of Plymouth because of this fantastic lecturer, Mary Jacobs. She told us that she hoped she’d make our Graduation day and she did. Sadly, she died earlier this year.

Just a few weeks after finding out this awful news, my housemate’s mum was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Her husband set up a blog called Wendy’s Army, so people could follow her progress as she battled with cancer for much longer than the Doctor’s predicted. She was originally given 6 – 9 months to live, which as you can imagine, was heartbreaking for my housemate and her family. Wendy battled on for over a year, and sadly passed away earlier this year. She is one of the most inspirational women I unfortunately didn’t have the pleasure of meeting, and her daughter, my ex-housemate, is lovely and bloody brave.

A new member of staff came to work in my Mum’s office after being through treatment for breast cancer. After just a couple of months this woman found that the cancer had returned and immediately sought treatment. She died just a few weeks later.

Another colleague of my Mum’s is by her own mum’s side as she undergoes chemotherapy for breast cancer as well. She recently had her hair cut short, so the side-effects of the chemotherapy (hair loss) wouldn’t be so traumatic.

Cancer, which has once been an awful disease that we had only witness from afar, because very relevant to some of our close friends. We’re very fortunate that none of our family suffer with cancer, yet we both feel it’s closer to home this year. We thought the best support, apart from being there for whoever is affected, is to raise money by doing Race for Life.

It’s a rubbish time to ask for money, a lot of people (myself included) are unemployed or accepting lower paid jobs than before, and for this reason this is the only post I’m writing about Race for Life. However, my goal is £50, and I need £30 to complete it. Even if you could give £1, $1, €1, it would be very much appreciated. Click here to go through to my sponsorship page.

Thank you.

Emma

P.s. If you’re reading this after the 21st July 2012 and would like to donate, then you can click here to the main cancer research UK site.