Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge for Sarcoma UK

In 2018, our little girl was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer at 8 years old: Synovial Sarcoma. We attended multiple GP and hospital appointments for nearly a year and Amber was initially incorrectly diagnosed with a benign ganglion. She underwent surgery for a presumed ganglion which severed the tumour, leaving some of it behind. Amber has since undergone five surgeries, 6 weeks of radiotherapy and numerous other interventions. She now suffers with PTSD.

Sadly, we are not alone in Amber’s story, with many sarcoma patients receiving a mis- or late diagnosis, meaning survival rates are much lower than other Children, Teen and Young People cancers. As sarcoma and its many subtypes is so rare, less funding is invested for research which means a lack of progression for treatments, also.

Myself, Aaron (Amber’s dad) and our friends Tracy, Steve, Lisa, Jon, Justina and Tom are therefore partaking in the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge to raise funds for Sarcoma UK - a charity working hard to raise money for research into sarcoma and its subtypes, and programmes to raise awareness in primary care. Our challenge will be to climb Yorkshire’s highest peaks and traverse a distance of 27 miles within 12 hours.

Sharing the journey with this group of friends couldn’t be more fitting, as they have helped us climb the most insurmountable peaks over the last five years, even when facing a cancer diagnosis themselves (Tracy), whilst holding fort at work during the pandemic (Lisa), and suffering the loss of a close family member (Teen). They have all been, and continue to be, such an incredible life line to us.

Please, please contribute anything you can to Sarcoma UK and raise money to support early diagnosis and research into this disease to help improve outcomes for children like Amber.

More information on Sarcoma UK and the astonishing work they are doing can be found here: https://sarcoma.org.uk