“My dad never got to meet his grandson, and I wanted to honour his memory by running the London Marathon. We all used to run together – my dad, my sisters and I. So running the marathon seemed like the perfect tribute.”

Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago, aged just 35. She had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

But a silver lining appeared in the shape of Jenny’s now husband whom she met while undergoing chemotherapy.

Following her treatment, Jenny believed she would be left infertile. But six months later she had the surprise news that she was pregnant with her now five-year-old ‘miracle’ son.

Unfortunately, Jenny wasn’t the only member of her family to be affected by cancer. Her father was diagnosed with stomach cancer and sadly died just a few days after she told him she was pregnant.

A year and a half ago, her sister was also diagnosed with breast cancer – she is currently doing well post treatment.

“ICR the perfect charity for me”

Genetic testing in December of last year showed that Jenny and her sister are both carriers of the BRCA2 mutation, a gene identified by the ICR as significantly increasing their risk of both breast and ovarian cancer.

By knowing her genetic predisposition, Jenny is now preparing to have preventative surgery – removing both her breast tissue and her ovaries – to reduce her chances of having either breast cancer again or ovarian cancer to almost zero.

“After going through diagnosis and treatment myself, and then losing my dad to cancer, I knew I wanted to do something to support the efforts of cancer research. The ICR was the perfect charity for me as they research all cancer types and my family has been affected by so many – breast, stomach, bone and skin cancer.”

You can support Jenny and donate to the ICR:

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