Lucy's Charity Ball and Gala Dinner for Cancer Research 2024

Sadly, so many of us know someone who has been, or is, continually affected by cancer, and with it targeting both myself as well as my dear Dad (he's thankfully been in remission a good while), I long for the day when a cure for all cancers is found.

As many of you know, after five and a half years of being in remission from my original breast cancer diagnosis in 2016 (aged 33), as well as still receiving a plethora of ongoing preventative treatments from that point on, (that I was still having) in November 2021; I was devastated to be told that the cancer had returned in my liver and spine and is now stage 4 and incurable - yes, terminal. This was despite previous immediate single mastectomy surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, hormone therapy, bone strengthening infusions, continued exercise and a generally balanced diet too. Nothing I could have done could have prevented this recurrence. It was stage 3 when originally found in 2016, so my odds were really against me from the beginning, despite my positivity.

So now I find myself aged 41 with a terminal illness, facing the realisation that unless a cure is found, I won’t live to see my now ten year old son grow up to become a young man and settle into adulthood and quite possibly not even into adolescence. And as you can well imagine, it is just utterly heart-breaking.

After having dared to dream that I was finally clear of the awful disease and had started to look forward to the future, I’ve instead been propelled back into the never-ending cycle of hospital appointments, procedures, injections, infusions, tablets, tests and scans and this time it’s indefinitely. So after another six months of gruelling IV chemo in 2022, I'm now on a continuous palliative treatment plan – as all my treatment will now be, with the hospital and chemo ward now a regular fixture in the life that I have remaining. This is because stage 4, metastatic cancer (i.e. a cancer that has spread / reoccurred from its original primary source) is not currently curable and can only be managed to delay the inevitable progression and eventual demise.

So, in a bid to twist this sick turn of events into some sort of positive as best I could, I decided to focus on my fundraising and achieve my goal of raising £10,000 for cancer charities (£6,000 of which I had already raised over the years for Cancer Research, Macmillian, Marie Curie and The Elimination of Leukemia Fund. This was through a sponsored hair chop on my 21st Birthday, a Skydive in 2010, Malaysian charity run in 2016, the London Marathon in 2018 and various other runs and events over the years. Ironically, I even donated my long hair to a lady who made wigs for cancer patients in 2003 (before such charities existed) before then becoming bald through chemo myself years later!

So just before chemo for my secondary diagnosis started on New Years Eve 2022, (perfect day for it right?!)I decided to host a gala ball, dinner and auction in June 2022, aiming to raise £4,000 - well, thanks to the huge generosity of friends, family and auction gift donations, we in fact raised £10,162.80 with 102 tickets selling out in under three weeks!

So as a result of it's huge success, I've decided to host this ball annually and my family and friends have agreed to continue my legacy of doing so every year onwards when I'm no longer here to do so myself. (Hopefully in a good few years yet!)

Tickets are £60pp and include;

• Three course meal (Menu options will be emailed to you in due course)
• High quality auction
• Quality raffle
• Music and dancing

L ocation: Wokefield Park, Reading

So if you are able to either buy a ticket to attend, donate because you can't attend, (https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/lucys-fundraising-page-2252) or donate an raffle or auction prize to help raise the total, I'd be immensely grateful for your kind support. All raffle and auction proceeds and 25% of all ticket sales will go to Cancer Research UK, the EventBright ticket platform takes a small percentage of ticket sales, with the rest of the ticket sales going to the venue - Wokefield Park, to pay for the event itself.

Health-wise I am incredibly grateful to report that I continue to remain stable. The first treatment line I've been on since re-diagnosis thankfully contines to keep the cancer sleeping - at least for now; until the next quarterly scan. The tiny liver tumours have disappeared and the lytic lesions (holes) in my spine are currently stable. So long may that continue so that I can continue fulfilling and enjoying the life I have, and making memories with the incredible friends and family that I'm blessed to share it with.

But it's thanks to Institutions like Cancer Research and the generousity and support of people like yourselves, attending and contributing to the ball and my fundraising that is enabling the research and trials that go into treatments such as mine. Ten or even five years ago, I may not still be here now - certainly highly unlikely that I'd still be on my first line treatment with (so far) continued stable quarterly scans.

There are so many variants of breast cancer - and indeed other cancer types too, and as a result a huge array of drug types and combinations of that need to be trialled and the longer us secondary cancer patients can keep living - the larger the pool of people to sign up to the trials when other treatment options have been exhausted, as I will likely do once I've run out of treatment options. Unless a cure becomes available within my remaining lifetime. For which we have to remain hopeful and continue to fundraise as long as I can and hopefully beyond.

So as I said before, the more money we raise, the more we’re supporting the invaluable research that could one day lead to this cure — let’s just continue to hope that it’s sooner rather than later. Because no child should face the prospect of losing a parent before they're even grown up themselves, as my poor boy still now does.

Thank you for your support — it’s very much appreciated.

Lucy. x

N.B. T he picture below is me receiving one of my many regular treatments - with a lot less hair, (and a fair bit of hairspray to tame the re-growth mullet!) but still with a positive attitude and a huge appreciation and relish for life despite everything.

I've also included some pictures of the first ball in 2022 as well as the second in 2023.