Dunnet mum's cancer cash bid
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A MARRIED mother of two from Dunnet who was given just one year to live seven years ago is set to make a leap of faith for charity.
Annette Ward, who has twice battled a rare cancer, will abseil around 160ft from the Forth Bridge on October 2 in order to raise money for the UK’s only dedicated myeloma charity.
The 58-year-old Castle of Mey tour guide was told she did not have long to live back in November 2004 when she was diagnosed with a rare cancer found in bone marrow – multiple myeloma.
She is now in remission for the second time and despite being afraid of heights she is more determined than ever to take advantage of feeling at her best to raise funds for Myeloma UK.
“While I’m still fit and healthy and able to do it I feel that I really ought to be raising some money,” she said. “They – Myeloma UK – have kept me alive for a lot longer than I expected.
“Hopefully I can raise awareness and as much money as possible to help them with other patients who have maybe not been as lucky as I have.”
Annette will join other myeloma patients in undertaking the potentially vertigo-inducing abseil on the south side of the bridge from the level of the rails down onto the ground below. This will all be done in the hope of raising funds to improve the treatment and care of patients suffering from myeloma.
Annette, who lives in Dunnet with her husband, Sharkey, has two children from a previous marriage, Maria (32) and Kieran (30), who now live in Berkshire.
As well as her family’s support she has been helped through the difficult times by Myeloma UK.
She said that speaking to other users on the charity’s website has been the best support group she could ever have asked for and she decided that she wanted to take part in one of the organisation’s fundraising events.
“I saw it advertised and thought ‘I’m probably never going to feel this good again’,” she said. “Since the last time I had been on the site four of my ‘cyber’ friends had died and that really just hit home and I realised that now is the time to raise some money.”
When Annette relapsed in 2009 it was staff at Myeloma UK who managed to get her on a clinical trial for drugs which helped put her back on the road to remission.
Annette was diagnosed in 2004 after a routine blood test.
Within a week of first being examined at the cancer unit in Kettering she was undergoing her first lot of chemotherapy.
“It was a case of the red flag went up and then it was full steam ahead,” she said. “It was a hell of a shock.
“When you are told you only have a year to live it’s quite devastating.”
As well as undergoing intensive chemotherapy, Annette also had a stem cell transplant in August 2005, which physicians estimated might gift her another five years of life.
Four years later, in 2009, the cancer returned but fortunately she was offered a second stem cell transplant, which she had done over the Christmas, in addition to the clinical drugs trial.
She has been in remission since then.
Myeloma only accounts for one per cent of all cancers but nonetheless is a very serious and painful one. It can be found in the bone marrow and it affects the immune system and can occur anywhere in the body.
For example Annette explained that her myeloma did not affect any one part of her body but could be found all the way from her skull to the bones in her toes.
There is no cure but there are effective treatments and money is needed to continue research into more advanced treatments to prolong a good quality of life for all patients, she explained.
“Thanks to Myeloma UK I have already lived two years longer than expected and I am not ready to let go yet,” she said.
“While I am still physically able I want to raise as much money as possible to help those who may not be as lucky as I have been so far.”
Annette has set up a fundraising page where donations can be made. Log on to www.just?giving.com/Annette-Ward0
