*Please help us in the fight against brain cancer!*

Joggin for My Noggin returns to the Royal Parks Half Marathon in October - and we’d love your support!

Some of you will know I was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2020 and underwent brain surgery to get as much of it out as possible.

Brain tumours come in all different shapes and sizes. Mine is a low grade glioma, astrocytoma - incurable and the sort that grows back. I have scans every 6 months to monitor things.

Unfortunately tumour growth has now occurred in 3 of my last 4 scans - but thankfully I am still seen as ‘stable’ by the doc and am truly grateful for every day that I get to continue a ‘normal life’ with my wife and girls. I know that so many others don’t.

In July I started on a new (yet to be licensed in the UK) drug called vorasidenib, which we hope might slow tumour growth. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster as my liver tries to adapt to it - but we have everything crossed that it settles and for positive news about the drug’s effect at my next scan in December…

I hadn’t even heard of vorasidenib when diagnosed, so whatever happens with me personally, it goes to show the vital role of research and that there are very clever people out there breaking new ground on treatments all the time.

That gives us all hope - but we need to keep banging the drum for this vital research.

In a bid to make a small contribution to ongoing awareness and fund raising, we launched Joggin for my Noggin last year - raising a whopping £10k in total for The Brain Tumour Charity through the Half Marathon and a charity football tournament.

We had such amazing support that we’d thought we’d try our luck again...

This year’s team may be fewer in numbers, but it’s just as big in gusto. We are:

Luke Cross

Alex Cross

Simon Century

Pete Gladwell

Paul Rickard

Tom Paul

Why help us? Some facts about brain tumours…

1️⃣ Brain tumours are the BIGGEST cancer killer of children and adults under 40

2️⃣ Over 12,000 people are diagnosed each year with a primary brain tumour, including 500 children and young people – that’s 33 people every day

3️⃣ Over 5,300 people lose their lives to a brain tumour each year

4️⃣ At least 88,000 children and adults are estimated to be living with a brain tumour in the UK currently

5️⃣ Brain tumours reduce life expectancy by on average 27 years – the highest of any cancer

6️⃣ Just 12% of adults survive for five years after diagnosis

7️⃣ Research offers the only real hope of dramatic improvements in the management and treatment of brain tumours. Over £700m is spent on cancer research in the UK every year, yet less than 3% is spent on brain tumours. We also know UK government is falling short on its pledge to unlock more cash for brain tumour research - let's make some noise about this!

Thanks for reading - any support you can give, whether sponsorship or simply spreading the word - is so very appreciated!

*whatever we raise here will be combined with the individual fundraising pages set up by Paul and Tom