There is never an easy way to share a cancer story, especially one about cancer returning.

2025 was, in many ways, both the best and the hardest year of my life.

On 26 February 2025, Ian and I welcomed our greatest blessing - our beautiful baby boy, James Michael Donald.

2025 also brought difficult news. Soon after James was born, we found out that my colon cancer had returned, more than four years after my original diagnosis and treatments.

The news was incredibly difficult for me, Ian, our family and our closest friends. Having a young baby made everything feel even more complex. I think being a medical doctor myself made it even more difficult to digest due to a heightened awareness of what things meant.

I was incredibly fortunate that my amazing colorectal surgical and oncology teams at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s Cancer Centre referred me to the Basingstoke Peritoneal Malignancy Institute for consideration of a very specialised operation called cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC. I was even more fortunate to be eligible for this treatment.

In August 2025, with what felt like a peloton of world-class medical professionals around me, I underwent an extensive - and that word probably doesn’t quite do it justice - eight-hour operation.

I simply cannot put into words how incredibly well I was cared for by the entire team at Basingstoke. From my surgeons and anaesthetists, to the theatre and recovery teams, intensivists, radiologists and radiographers, intensive care nurses, haematologists, physiotherapists, pharmacists, clinical nurse specialists, the incredible nursing team on C2, dietitians, HCAs, housekeeping staff, psychologists, porters, resident surgical registrars and fellows, SHOs and medical students.

The administrative staff were so wonderful too.

It was the most complete package of care, delivered by an extraordinary group of people.

And alongside them, I had my own incredible team at home.

Ian and James were with me every day throughout it all. My Mom, Inge, flew over from South Africa without hesitation to look after me, Ian and James, keep our household running and somehow look after her own life from another continent for three months. My dad, André, held the fort in South Africa while my Mom was here and constantly checked in on us.

My brother Michael, sister-in-law Stephanie and my twin nieces, Margot and Olivia, came over from Switzerland. My wonderful in-laws - Cathy, Roy, Matthew, Michelle, Oliver, Camilla, Megan, Chase and Gran - were there with endless check-ins, visits and support.

And our wider family and friends carried us through some of the most difficult moments of our lives.

After another six months of chemotherapy, which I finished in March 2026, I am incredibly grateful to say that I am currently healthy and living with no evidence of cancer.

And so, I’m running.

On Sunday 4 October, I’m aiming to run the Phillips Law Basingstoke Half Marathon in under two hours and, most importantly, raise money for the Pelican Cancer Foundation.

Pelican Cancer Foundation is a medical research and education charity dedicated to the research, education and advancement of precision surgery for bowel cancer and its associated secondary diseases.

Thanks to their work, and the generosity of those who support them, people like me are able to live well for longer with more time with our families and friends and more of the ordinary moments that become so incredibly precious.

Any donation, no matter how big or small, could make a meaningful difference to someone facing this disease now or in the future. If you are able to donate, I would be incredibly grateful.

I’m also extremely lucky to have my incredible brother Michael running alongside me. He’s very fast, so I’m hoping to keep up with him!

But on Sunday, I’m running for a lot more than a sub-two-hour time.

I’m running for me - because I am so grateful to be alive, to have more time and to be able to run. Because I know that I can do hard things.

I’m running for my exceptional consultant surgeons, Mr Vasanth Mark Samuel and Mr Brendan Moran (who I’m hoping to see at the half marathon too), and for their wider team and all the extraordinary surgeries they undertake.

I’m running for the Pelican Cancer Foundation, to help support research into finding the most effective treatments for patients facing bowel cancer and its secondary diseases.

I’m running for the medical community - for every person who has contributed to my care and helped get me to where I am today.

I’m running for my family and friends, who have carried us, supported us and loved us through every step of this journey.

I’m running for my best friend and husband, Ian. Words will never express how you have supported us through all of this, kept our family together and somehow kept putting one foot in front of the other when things felt impossibly hard.

And lastly I’m running for the best boy in the entire world - my James, a real-life phoenix.

Thank you for helping me celebrate being here, being healthy and having the chance to run and for helping give others the same opportunity in the future!