Thank you for taking time to look at my just giving page. On the 24th September I will be running the Nottingham Full Marathon to raise money for a close friend Aaron who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

In August 2016 Aaron was diagnosed with a rare cancer called alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a soft tissue and bone cancer at just 28 years old.
After being misdiagnosed for so long by the time the cancer was detected behind his left cheek it had already spread throughout the soft tissue and bones in his body. The cancer is very rare and extremely aggressive at this late stage.

Aaron has already been through 9 months of gruelling treatment. He underwent one of the harshest chemotherapy regimes that exists, alongside 6 weeks of radiotherapy to his head, neck and spine. The side effects of this treatment were severe and led to many more weeks in the hospital hooked up to drips, pain relief and a feeding tube in order to recover. His throat and mouth were visibly burnt from the radiotherapy meaning he could no longer eat and some days couldn't even speak. Throughout all of this he maintained a positive attitude and never stopped making us and the nurses laugh. The treatment worked well and recent scans show only a few current problem areas in his pelvis, which he will start receiving radiotherapy for at the end of July 2017. If Aaron had not responded so well to this treatment it is highly unlikely that he would still be with us today.

We believe his only chance at long term survival is a treatment called immunotherapy. Unfortunately this treatment is very costly and must be obtained privately. This type of treatment is becoming commonplace in other countries and has proven to be very promising for Aaron’s type of cancer, but the rarity of rhabdomyosarcoma means that it likely won’t be available on the NHS for some years. We hope Aaron can find success with this treatment, paving the way for others to be able to obtain it in the UK.