If you know me, you know that exercise isn’t really my thing, i’d rather sit in my jammies and eat cake! But I have decided to run a marathon during the month of May. Not your typical marathon because I am not au faux with exercise! I will be running 26.6 miles during the month of May, whether this be on the treadmill at the gym, running round the office compound or running the mean streets of Northampton. It may take me 4 hours, it may take me 4 days and it may take me 4 weeks but I will run the whole amount during the month of May. I will be tracking my progress on the ‘Map my run’ app so can keep you updated with my progress.
Here is my story:
Some of you may be aware, my beautiful mum has been unlucky enough to encounter Melanoma. She is covered head to toe in moles and this makes it very difficult to notice changes in the size, colour and shape of any mole. When she did notice a change in a mole on one of her legs she got it checked out and after many appointments and biopsy’s she was told it was stage 3 Melanoma. They had to operate on her lymph nodes to ensure it hadn’t spread, and finally went in for an operation to have the melanoma removed. After weeks and weeks of recovery (the wound got infected more than once so recovery time was tripled) she ended up with what can only be described as a shark bite scar on the bottom of her leg. This still causes her pain, and she is very self conscious of its look. She then had another mole that had to be removed, sent off for testing and more lymph nodes removed, all within a year (we were lucky enough to be given the all clear news on this one, but she still had recover time from the operation to think the worst) 2 years down the line she’s been given the all clear and is finally coming to terms with it, mentally and physically. It’s been a tough road for her and I cannot imagine how my life would be if she wasn’t a fighter.

I am doing this to not only raise money for research, but to raise awareness. A sun tan is lovely, but your life is worth so much more!

Melanoma is a form of skin cancer, it’s not any ‘better’ or worse than any other form of the big ‘C’. Cancer is Cancer and we need to help find a cure.

If you have managed to read to the end, thank you! I’ll look forward to the challenge that awaits me!!!

Laura Jones