Lydia's 24 Hour WODATHON

Hi my name is Stephanie Blundall and myself and all our gym members are fundraising for my gym bestie, our long standing member and our CrossFit coach Lydia Southam. We are going to be taking on the challenge of a workout every hour on the hour for 24 hours on Friday 6th September at 6pm till Saturday 7th September at 6pm. These will vary across all different crossfit movements weightlifting, gymnastics and CV. Lengths from 5 minutes to 40 minutes. This will test our physical and mental strength. Some people will do the full 24 hours and some will complete in a team with life, family and work commitments. We will also have time in the day for 2 sessions for kids and families. Getting our whole community involved.

Lydia's story.

Unfortunately in June 2023 she was diagnosed with Stage 4b low grade serous ovarian cancer. She was only 34 years old at diagnosis and with 3 young children to support. Unfortunately her health insurance policy didn't cover this eventuality. With multiple tumours Lydia had to have major abdominal surgery performed on the 12th July per midline laparotomy an en bloc resection of uterus, adnexa, pelvic and bladder peritoneum, rectosigmoid resection and end to end anastomosis, ileocaecal resection and side to side anastomosis, right inguinal bulky LND, anterior abdominal wall resection and reconstruction and sheath mobilisation, umbilical resection and cutaneous metastases resection, infragastric omentectomy en bloc with splenectomy, right diaphragmatic and Morrisons pouch and paracolic stripping.

Low grade serous ovarian cancer typically does not respond well to chemotherapy so successful surgery is of the greatest importance. She needed this surgery immediately and with NHS wait lists and needing a specialist in this area to perform the surgery, Lydia's family managed to raise the funds for surgery and first round of Chemo to give Lydia the best chance. This surgery resulted in Lydia being tumour free, which is incredible given how far it had spread. Since then she has been through a further 5 rounds of Chemo and 1 year of Bevacizumab (All cancers need a blood supply to be able to survive and grow. Bevacizumab blocks this protein and stops the cancer from growing blood vessels, so it is starved and can't grow) every 3 weeks. Plus daily Letrozole (hormone blocker) tablets.

Lydia has got to the position she is in with her strong mental attitude, and having supportive friends and family. Alongside this she swears by the power of the gym and the community of people there. She has used this not only to build her physical body back but also her mental strength. On some of her darkest days it's been her place to come to release. She has also changed her diet completely, no alcohol, no processed foods. She has even started to making her own household cleaning items to ensure there is limited exposure to toxicity. She is one super determined lady and will do anything to keep this awful disease at bay.

Thank goodness that right now she is in remission but her Treatment with the NHS of Bevacizumab coming to an end as her cancer is so rare and there is no research done as yet to using this treatment over 12 months (even though it’s authorised for longer in other cancers). As of September she will just be taking the hormone blockers, although her cancer has low hormone levels so there is no evidence that this will work on its own without the treatment she is currently taking and will not be allowed to be put on it if the cancer comes back.

If she were to continue with this treatment her only option is to go private to continue it (which is very costly) so this is why we as a gym community want to do our annual 24 hour challenge to support our own. We want to raise as much money as we can so that if Lydia needs treatment or surgery moving forward or we can have a pot she can dip in as needed.

Any donations would be so gratefully received. She will do whatever it takes to fight this to be there for her children. However, if she needs a bit of help to keep this fight going, this will be so valuable.