Julia was diagnosed with Large diffuse B cell non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in early September  2015. She battled the disease for 20 months until she was finally overwhelmed and died on 19 April 2017.  In the UK (and this is probably true for other developed nations) 1 in 2 people born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime.  Statistics from Cancer Research UK show us that in 2014, there were around 163,000 cancer deaths in the UK, 450 deaths every day.  That translates to someone dying in the UK from cancer every four minutes.  Cancers cause more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK.

(See

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/risk/lifetime-risk for details of statistics on cancer rates) 

These terrifying statistics can be changed by more research.  Cancer is a disease which can be cured if better understood.  In Julia's case, a third of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are the diffuse large B cell type.  The usual treatment is to undergo chemotherapy  which is called R-CHOP.  It cures about 60% of suffers. Of the 40% who did not respond to R-CHOP, about 5-10% will be cured with a different chemotherapy regime plus a stem-cell transplant.  The others will suffer the same fate as Julia and be overwhelmed by the cancer.  The lymphoma team at The Christie are engaged in research to find ways to:

1. Increase % of first line cure by adding new effective drugs into the R-CHOP regimen.

2. Find and test new anticancer drugs for those sufferers who have either relapsed or who did not get cured by the R-CHOP chemotherapy. 

This research is ongoing and very costly.  Raising funds to enable this research would speed up the process of finding cures for cancer sufferers so that in the future no one will need to suffer and die from this form of cancer.  Finding cures for one kind of cancer also often has cross over to other cancers as our general understanding of this terrible disease increases.  So while focusing on curing lymphoma, this can also help with the other cancers from which so many people suffer and will suffer from in the future. 

Julia would have liked that those who want to remember her donate to research of this kind.  It will be a fitting tribute to a person who touched the lives of so many and made the world a much better place.  

On behalf of Daniel, Ruth and myself, we thank you in advance for any donation you are able to make.  It won't bring Julia back but it will hopefully help prevent others from suffering the terrible illness she experienced and prevent other families losing someone they deeply love and cherish when they are at the relatively young age of 57. Let's make a part of Julia's legacy the fact that her illness and passing provided an impetus for more cancer research so we can defeat this terrible and deadly illness. 

Steve, Daniel and Ruth