Hello and welcome to my JustGiving page. First of all, whether you are a family member, friend, colleague or complete stranger, I just want to say thank you for taking some of your time to read my story on why I am fundraising for Pancreatic Cancer UK. I've set myself a crazy target, but hey, that's what targets are for right!?

I will be running this years London Marathon in October. I have never classed myself as a runner (nor does my girlfriend!) and never will for that matter, but I am always up for a challenge and there is no better cause to do it for. To get my mum to her target, I have to raise £3000, a big target I know, but with your generosity and support, I believe I can do it.

I lost my mum, Heidi, to pancreatic cancer in August 2019 when she was aged just 49, along with my uncle Rene a few months earlier and my Grandad in 2011.  As you can imagine losing three of my family members  to pancreatic cancer has had a massive effect on my family (in more ways than one). We are lucky to have/ and continue to go through this together as a family, however not everyone can always have that support. Thats why its so important that there are charities like Pancreatic Cancer UK get all the support they can so that they can be there for families like mine, and continue to fight for further research and change.

My mum had a heart of gold and truly made a difference to the lives of everyone she met. When she was alive, she started fundraising and set herself a target of a staggering £20,000. She didn't live long enough to reach this target, however she has already done a lot of the hard work and raised an incredible £17,116. Now its my turn to raise some money and get my mum over the finishing line.

Pancreatic cancer has one of the lowest survival rates out there with just 8%. 8%!! This just isn't good enough and this can be changed with better research into early diagnosis. Being diagnosed earlier enough to have surgery increases your chance of survival onto 5 years by 30%. It’s unacceptable that more than half of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die within 3 months. Survival rates have improved enormously for most cancers, yet for pancreatic cancer, this is not the case.

You may ask yourself, why should I donate to Pancreatic Cancer over all the others. The answer is simple because if you are diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer, you have a 92% chance of NOT surviving. The statistics say it all. If it is £5 or £50, it all helps and all goes towards  helping an amazing cause.

Thank you for taking your time to read my story. I will be doing fundraisers between now and October and will be keeping everyone update on Facebook/Instagram, so if you would like to keep unto date with everything I am doing, please feel free to add me or give me a follow. Instagram: @jodydance Facebook: Jody Dance