'My son ran 8 marathons in 8 days after my daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia'

A dad from Chorley has supported his son in running eight marathons in eight days after a devastating family diagnosis.

Nigel Jones's daughter, Kate Ramsay was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) in 2022. The then 22-year-old had finished studying at St Peter's College in Oxford University and just started a Master's law degree in London.

Working hard to achieve her qualifications, Kate's illness came out of the blue. "She was poorly for about a week," 55-year-old Nigel told LancsLive. "She just felt really ill and just fatigued. Then she started to get really severe pains in her legs and in her arms.

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"She presented herself at hospital, they did some tests and immediately admitted her. They did some blood tests and that came up that she had leukaemia straight away."

Whilst the rest of the family were in Chorley, they received a phone call to hear of Kate's diagnosis and immediately set off down to London to be by her side. Nigel, who works as a Group Director of People at Together Housing, explained his wife and Kate's mother moved down to London for almost a year as their daughter required specific treatment in hospital. Their son, Sam also lives in Greenwich and supported the family whilst they adjusted to life down south.

When Kate was admitted to University College London Hospital and received chemotherapy, followed by a stem cell transplant in April 2023. The transplant was supported from the Anthony Nolan Trust, an organisation that provides a register which matches donors with patients who require transplants.

Firstly, medical professionals seek family members who may be a match, before turning to the register. For Kate, she was lucky enough to find a match from a gentleman in Germany.

"What you're looking for is the best match you can get," Nigel added. "She was lucky she got this exact match from a chap in Germany, who she doesn't know and therefore she's had that treatment.

"Then it's a long road from that treatment - it's not just that you have that treatment and you're well. You still have a lot of things you have to do.

"Basically, it destroys your immune system and replaces it with someone else's immune system and then you have to grow your own immunity again. So when you've had AML and a transplant, you end up with loads and loads of infections."

Although Kate's journey isn't over, the 24-year-old is certainly on the road to recovery.

Wanting to thank the team at the hospital and raise awareness about the Anthony Nolan Trust, Kate's brother Sam decided to start fundraising. When deciding how to go about it, Nigel explained his son had already completed half and full marathons and had his sights set on a challenge much bigger and better.

Nigel explained: "His view was, yes he could have gone and run the London marathon, he could have done something like that but everyone else does that. He wanted to do something that was a bit stand out.

"He was actually inspired by Rob Burrows and worked out how far it was from the hospital to Chorley, where we're from and that worked out at roughly eight marathons, it's actually slightly more. He worked out he could do it in eight days and thought, eight! Eight for Kate that rhymes!"

Sam set off on the mammoth challenge on Saturday, June 8 and completed his last marathon on Saturday, June 15 - the day of Kate's birthday. Covering a total of 217 miles, Sam was supported by his dad who ran some portions of the challenge, as well as family members and friends who joined him on the journey.

Talking about Sam's preparation for the challenge, Nigel said: "He's been training for the last six months, maybe more. He's been running from work, on the weekends doing more and longer runs.

"That brought him into the realms of doing back to back marathons. He'd run a marathon on Saturday and a marathon on Sunday.

"If he was up with us, he'd do the same and he'd go out and do it, running from Blackpool and back."

You can still donate to Sam and Nigel's Just Giving page, as the family raise awareness and funding for the Anthony Nolan Trust.