Cancer affects everyone. Becky’s father has been diagnosed with skin cancer. My father is a cancer survivor. My mother died from cancer as did her sister, my Aunty Mary and her brother in law, my Uncle Kenneth. 

Currently our friend Shiona has been living with stage 4 melanoma since Mar 2017 and is being treated with pioneering cancer treatment at the Royal Marsden. We want to help raise funds for melanoma research at the Royal Marsden to help them continue their research to develop new life saving cancer treatments. The care Shiona receives from the team there is outstanding and is keeping her alive and living life to the fullest with her family and friends

As little as 5-10 years ago a stage 4 melanoma diagnosis had a prognosis of 6 to 9 months. Fortunately in the last 5 years new immunotherapy drugs and targeted treatment have changed the outlook for some patients but immunotherapy only works for 40 - 50 % of patients and the melanoma often develops resistance to targeted treatments so whilst progress has been made there is still much more work to be done as all too often patients still succumb to this awful disease.

Shiona writes a blog to raise awareness of melanoma and you can read the full story of her ups and downs of living life with melanoma at www.shomelanoma.com 

The last year has been particularly challenging for charities as many of their fundraising events have been cancelled and they have experienced a drop in funding which has had a significant effect on research. All funds raised from this challenge will go 100% directly to the melanoma research fund at the Royal Marsden and will be allocated to fund further life saving research. Full details of the projects funded are included in Shiona's blog.