Hi

Myself and Darren will be doing 1 mile of burpees approx 2000 and 1 mile flipping an 80kg tyre approx 2000 flips to help our friend raise money for his wife full details below

We have both served in the military and that is probably why we came up with this crazy challenge.

Please see below

My name is Helen Rayner, I am a publican in Hounslow, west London. I have two daughters 30 year old Jade and 25 year old Amber I am also grandmother to Jades 5 year old daughter, Eva. Jade is married to Gareth who is ex military and now a fitness instructor. Jade is a serving officer in the Metropolitan police force. Life was looking good, they were about to buy their forever family home and turn it into their dream place. Then, overnight, their dreams turned into a nightmare.

In February of 2017 Jade was diagnosed with stage 3c triple negative breast cancer which for those of you that don’t know is a rare and aggressive form of cancer which had already spread to her lymph nodes. Well as you can imagine we as a family were all blown away by this news with the exception of Jade whose attitude towards it was ‘OK, I have it lets get on with it’.

Months of aggressive chemotherapy, surgery and a good hammering of radiotherapy followed yet all the way through Jade was amazing and an inspiration to us all. Not at any time did she complain or whinge, not even when her hair started falling out, she just reached for the clippers and took control. Her sense of humour never faltered and, to be perfectly honest, helped the rest of us through. Her whole focus was on beating this disease and getting back to work and continue with her life.

The day Jade was given the news that she had had a complete pathological response to treatment (the all clear) she left the hospital like her backside was on fire. Her mother literally had to run to keep up with her!

In February 2018, as soon as the doctors permitted, Jade returned to the job she loves albeit on recuperative duties slowly building up her hours with a view to return to full duties in September. But, in late May Jade began suffering from a persistent headache, she just couldn’t shift it. By the first week of June she could stand the pain no more and took herself to A&E. Jade insisted on a CT scan, after revealing her recent medical history they finally agreed to do it. Sadly the results of the scan revealed several masses to Jades brain that were suspected to be the breast cancer that had metastised. Further scans, an MRI and PET resulted in the following diagnosis:

Stage 4 Brain Mets a Total of 7 Tumours

Yes you read that right…..7 metastatic brain tumours. Due to the location and number of tumours surgery to remove them is not an option in the UK.

Jade was referred to the Royal Marsden hospital in London where they performed 3 sessions of stereotactic radiosurgery (the cyber knife). They treated all 7 tumours in a bid to shrink them as much as possible. If this treatment is successful it will buy Jade some time but we wont know how the tumours have reacted until September 2018 when she will be scanned again. In the meantime we are trying holistic therapies, diets and anything else that may help. Then there is the relentless search for treatments in other countries.

In the UK Jade has been given 12-24 months to live, yet in the USA, with the right treatment, people are living for many years with their cancer being classed as dead or sleeping.

We have met with a young woman from the UK by the name of Melissa Huggins who 10 years ago was also given 2 years to live by doctors in the UK and, like us, Melissa’s parents refused to accept the prognosis and took her to the USA for treatment. 10 years on, Melissa is now married with a young daughter. She has no idea if her cancer is dead or sleeping…..but shes still here.

We have found a fantastic clinic in the USA, Duke Health, that believe they can treat Jade, they are currently working on a care plan for specifically for her. But this is going to cost, we are not sure as yet of what that will be in terms of money, but there is no price too high to put on such a sad waste of a beautiful life and the devastation and loss that would ensue should we not achieve our goal and GET JADE WELL so she can watch her daughter grow into as wonderful a woman as her mother is.

As a police officer Jade runs towards danger to help others, now she needs others to help her to be here for Eva.