When my partner Christine died in March 2018 I looked for a suitable charity that could benefit from any donations family and friends might like to make. Given that Christine had died from a blood cancer it was appropriate that we should raise funds for that specific charity.
Christine’s family, friends and people who didn’t even know her raised an incredible £6,190.36 in her name. The generosity in both money donated and comments people made touched us all.
Cancer affects so many people, so many families, friends, colleagues. Some facts about blood cancer in particular:
- The three main groups are leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma, but there are more than 100 individual types.
- Blood cancer is the third biggest cancer killer in the UK. It claims the lives of more than 15,000 people each year.
- Blood cancer is the most common type of cancer amongst children, teenagers and young adults in the UK. When we were founded in 1960, only 1 in 10 children with the most common blood cancer survived. Today, thanks to research, 8 in 10 children will survive.
- Breakthroughs in blood cancer research often lead to breakthroughs in treatments of other forms of cancer. Blood Cancer UK has invested more than £500 million in research since 1960.
Anyone who has seen the effects of cancer will know that the sooner we defeat this disease the better. I hope that the release of the single My Guardian Angel will help bring that day closer.