Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Approximately 38.4% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime. After a lifetime of kidding myself that my ginger skin could tan I was part of this statistic and was diagnosed with stage two skin cancer earlier this year. It was a diagnosis that shocked me and affected me more than I had ever anticipated, both physically and psychologically. However, because of the amazing work of organisations such as Cancer Research UK the survival rate of cancer has doubled in the past 40 years and after six months of stress and a couple of surgeries I was given the all clear.

I feel very strongly that in cloudy Britain we are under-informed about skin cancer; its harms, its causes and its frequency. Organisations such as Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support have enabled diagnoses such as mine to be much more hopeful than they were decades previously.

Consequently, and as part of my recovery process, I will be attempting to brave London’s winter and my very dodgy knee to run the Cancer Research Winter Run and raise money and awareness for an amazing cause (and hopefully get back to the pre-op (post gap yah) bod).

Like most, I was naive enough to think that this would never happen to me so I hope my experience might educate others and make them think twice about the dangers of over exposure to the sun and harmful UVs.

If you are able to give anything at all I will be eternally grateful xxxxxxx