After many long months of investigations into his stomach complaints, our dad was diagnosed on the 28th May 2020 with a rare form of soft tissue cancer with stage 4 primary tumours in his liver and spleen and various secondary tumours around his body. 

This was the most devastating news the family could have received especially in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and enforced lockdown preventing us from spending time together at a time when we were needed the most.

With a prognosis of the cancer being incurable and life limiting, dad started his chemotherapy treatment on the 2nd June 2020 with the intention to reduce the tumours and defy the doctors. His treatment is due to continue on a weekly basis until mid November at the Royal Marsden hospital, Chelsea.

At the young age of 66, still carrying out removals, working hard at the family business and playing squash/tennis on a weekly basis, our dad has always been fit, healthy and happy with his life.  If you're lucky enough to know him, you wouldn't expect anything like this would knock him down in his prime, which makes it even harder to accept that this cruel disease has done exactly that.

Dad's currently 2/3 of his way through the planned treatment and it's knocking him for six, however, he remains in good spirits and can still be found on the roof of his garage trimming the wysteria or with his head in a toilet repairing a leaking valve.

I have no idea what it feels like to be in dad's shoes at the moment but we want to show our superhero of a dad our love and support by challenging ourselves and raising money for an invaluable charity who are at the forefront of research and providing support to anyone affected by sarcoma.

Having not riden a bike further than a couple of miles, I'm joining a small team of family members, close friends and even some avid riders (pro's in comparison to me) to cycle 55 miles from London to Brighton in aid of Sarcoma-UK.  Although my fitness is quite good from the years following in dads footsteps in removals and playing squash, it will be a hell of a challenge for me to complete the ride but nothing like the challenge that dads going through at the moment. 

Whilst we’ve all been gearing up to complete the ride on 12 September 2020, we recently received the unfortunate news that the ride was being postponed until September 2021 due to COVID.  However, as a team, we still plan to complete the ride independently on Saturday 3 October 2020 and will do so again on the official event in 2021.