14/07/2025
Two weeks today myself, Dean & Amy from Leeds Dock Paddle Boarding (Sup School) and a few others are going to be taking on the Caledonian Canal by SUP and other paddle craft.
This 100km journey across the width of Scotland, starting from Fort William and finishing in Inverness, will take us 4 days, carrying everything we need on our boards/boats and camping wild under the Scottish night sky.
We are all taking on this challenge with the goal to help raise money for my partner Anna, to help pay for her ongoing Cancer treatment that costs us thousands of pounds per month. NHS treatment has helped and continues to help us so far but unfortunately it isn’t enough, which has lead us to integrate additional treatment to help keep Anna with us as long as possible.
When I did my SUP against Cancer fundraiser in April of last year Anna had recently finished her Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy treatment and began her Hormone Therapy. All was looking good and the doctors were happy for us to get back to normal life. Fast forward two months and the hammer fell again.
Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, spread to the bones, average life expectancy 5 years!
We said no thank you to that and sought some extra help. Since November Anna has been visiting a private clinic who have:
* Sorted out her diet, helping her to lose over 6 stone in unnecessary weight since November, starving out the cancer and preventing it from growing further.
* Regular blood tests to monitor Anna’s inflammatory markers and adjust diet, exercise and drug protocols accordingly, helping the NHS drugs to do their jobs better.
* Gene, Gut and other tests to find out what foods Anna can and can’t eat, ones that cause inflammation and those that simply cannot be digested or absorbed properly.
* Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy once a week as cancer cells cannot survive in an Oxygen rich environment, not to mention a whole host of other health benefits that comes with it.
Thanks to that clinic Anna has never looked or felt healthier. She truly feels like she is beating this disease and is aiming to not only beat that 5 year average lifespan but see Eira, our beautiful three year old, finish School & College and even greet our first grandchild into this world.
If you can donate anything to the fundraiser, created by our friends over at Heckmondwike Tutors who Anna works for, then that will help more than you could ever know.
We look forward to this challenge but know it is nothing compared to the challenge of fighting stage 4 cancer.
Keep your eyes peeled for more updates and our journey once we are on our way.
