My son Joseph was unexpectedly diagnosed with kidney cancer in May 2014 when he was 8 years old. He had previously been completely fit and well. 

Unfortunately for Joseph his tumour had leaked and so he was given a 27 week chemotherapy program and 3 weeks of radiotherapy to his whole abdomen. He also had an operation to remove the tumour and his kidney. 

Due to reactions to the chemotherapy and being very unwell his treatment program lasted 36 weeks which included 14 stays in hospital of a week or more. He also had to have two further operations to change his central line which was used to deliver the chemotherapy.

Thanks to the brilliant NHS in the form of the Royal Marsden Hospital Joseph is currently 10 months post treatment and has no sign of a recurrence of the cancer. If he is still clear at 2 years post treatment then his odds of recurrence drop significantly below 5%.

We have set up a fund raising team J4M (Joseph 4 the Marsden) because we want to give something back to help other children who aren't as lucky as Joseph, whose prognosis is not as good as his. Funds raised by J4M are being used for a pilot study into treatment for an aggressive form  of brain cancer, medulloblastoma. Less than 50% of children diagnosed with this condition are currently able to survive. 

My personal effort towards the fund raising for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity will be to attempt to run four marathons in four weeks, each one in under four hours. They will all be in April 2016 and consist of Paris (3rd), Manchester (10th), Brighton (17th) and London (24th). I am funding all of the associated costs so all funds raised go directly to the charity.

If you would like to sponsor me in my attempt then I thank you for your support.

Visit our team page J4M on the link below for more details of other events we are organising and news of other team members fund raising efforts. Good luck and thank you to them all.