Hi there,

Thank you for visiting my Just Giving page!

My name is Rosemary, Rosie to my friends, and I am hoping to raise money for skin cancer tumour research and treatment by walking the Peddars Way in August from Knettishall Heath in Suffolk to Hunstanton in Norfolk …49 miles in four days!!

For those not aware, I had the misfortune a couple of years ago to be diagnosed with BCC (Basal Cell Carcinoma, a non-malignant skin cancer) on my scalp. After two operations under local anaesthetic by my local Hertfordshire surgeon I was referred to Prof Moncrieff at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital for “Mohs” surgery as BCC cells were still found in the surrounding tissue. [Mohs surgery is where the surgeon removes the tumour in thin layers, examining each under a microscope immediately. This spares healthy tissue and yields up to a 99% cure rate.]

I underwent 6 hours of Mohs surgery (down to my skull, literally with a hole in my head🤪) followed a few weeks later by 6 hours reconstructive surgery involving skin grafts from my thigh and transplanting muscle tissue from my back. Professor Moncrieff and his teams were brilliant, from the actual complexities of the operation to the nursing care, Plastic Surgery Dressings Clinic and the Tissue Viability Team specialising in how wounds heal. I should also mention the nursing care at my local GP Surgery, whereby videos made on my smart phone at the hospital dressings clinic enabled the specialist dressing changes to be sometimes done closer to home.

Medical science is incredible and I feel so lucky that this condition has been researched, making my treatment, healing and recovery possible.

So, this challenge... I wanted to give something back as a thank you and help progress the understanding and treatment offered. (Talking to staff at the NNUH, I have only recently discovered that the planned key-hole surgery to remove the back muscle was developed with the assistance of funds from someone similar to me! In my case they had to revert to a 12” wound down from my armpit, but the technology is now there to avoid patients going through healing of that donor site whilst the tumour and graft site are healing aswell. Amazing!)

Thank you for reading my story. If you are able to donate something, however small, it will encourage me on my walk and help continue the research and treatment of the increasingly common condition of skin cancer. Specific details below.

Rosie xx

I also give thanks to my kind friend at Harpenden Choral Society, Sara, who I should mention is keeping me company and spurring me on for the entire distance!! x

Funding work by charitable donations to the Norfolk & Norwich Hospitals Charity: Your donation will go towards supporting the wider programme of melanoma and reconstructive surgery research that improves outcomes while making treatment less invasive wherever possible. Several ongoing and planned projects at the Norfolk and Norwich University Foundation Trust include:

* International research investigating genetic markers that may help us better understand and treat advanced melanoma

* Further development of the keyhole tissue-transfer techniques pioneered at NNUH, with the aim of reducing the impact of reconstructive surgery on patients

* International studies to identify melanoma patients at particularly high risk of recurrence, so that surgery or drug treatment can be offered earlier and more effectively