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My sister and I are participating in 100km cycling challenge, the Financial Times London Cycle Sportive,  that starts in Dulwich Park and the route goes out to the Surrey Hills taking in Box Hill as cycled on by Mark Cavendish and Lizzie Armitstead in the 2012 Olympics.

We are doing this challenge in memory of our father, Edward Shamrakov, who in August 2012 was diagnosed with the last stage of non-small cell lung cancer.  The shock of the news was gut wrenchingly devastating for our family. There were no obvious signs before he was diagnosed, but he was complaining of pain in his back for about a year before diagnosis. The doctor kept sending him for cardiograms and testing his heart and blood pressure. By the time they figured out it was lung cancer, it was too late.

Of course we all held on to hope of a cure. We went through round after round of painful chemotherapy with him and watched him turn away from all his favourite food in favour of healing herbs, vitamins and blandness and witnessed his rapid and terrible deterioration and weight loss. But he held on to hope right up until his very last few days. He loved life and had many amazing friends and just wanted to live a little longer, to be part of it all and enjoy it. To our great sorrow, lung cancer took this wonderful, loving and adored man from us on 1 March, 2013, just 6 months after diagnosis.

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK. Each year more than 41,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer in the UK, with 35,000 losing their battle.  Whilst it is the second most diagnosed cancer after breast cancer, unfortunately, not enough is being done about treating it.  Cancer Reearch UK has published staggering gaps in the current efforts to find effective treatments for lung cancer sufferers.

Just 4% of the total cancer research budget goes towards lung cancer, even though it represents 13% of diagnosed cancers and 22% of total cancer deaths.

Yes, there is a stigma attached to lung cancer as many people believe that this is a disease brought on by people's own actions through smoking.  But we have to remember that smoking was only recently banned in many public areas globally and was still advertised not so long ago.  Furthermore, 15% of non-small cell lung cancer patients have never touched a cigarette in their lives.  Another cause of the high fatality associated with lung cancer is poor detection rates at stages early enough to provide a cure or at least some effective treatment to manage the disease.

We hope this will inspire you to support us in this challenge in memory of our father, who never gave up hope.  Cancer Research UK offers much more than hope to lung cancer patients, it will give them the possibility of a future with their loved ones, something our Dad would have cherished.

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