Last November, I was looking forward to a weekend away in Dubai with my wife, Millie. A few days before, I noticed that my wee was darker than usual. Being very colour deficient, I assumed I was dehydrated. A couple of days, and lots of glasses of water later, I realised that it wasn't just dark, but that there was blood in there. 

I visited my GP who told me that I was too young for it to be anything sinister, but I should see a Urologist as a precaution (I was 40 at the time). Two days later, I had my appointment, followed by several blood test and scans etc. A week later I had surgery to remove a large, aggressive tumour from my bladder. It had just started to spread into the muscle, so had I have waited, things would be very different. 

This year 10,000 people in the UK will be diagnosed with bladder cancer. 5000 will die. It's the 7th biggest cancer (4th in men) yet few people have heard of it.

On the 4th October, Aaron Elie, Alan Costales, Graham Tritton, Hazel Cooper, James Matejka, Thomas Griffiths, Zain Choudhry, Yannick Dyant and Shabbar Huddar will be running the Tonbridge Half Marathon with me to support Fight Bladder Cancer, a charity run by survivors of bladder cancer. They work tirelessly to raise awareness, to support sufferers and their families and to fund research. 

Thank you,

Neil Bryant