A woman, who said her life was saved by a new treatment for a rare cancer, has set herself the challenge of a long-distance cycle ride.
Julie Rose, 49, from Bridgwater, Somerset, was referred to The Royal Marsden Hospital after being diagnosed in 2020 with medullary thyroid cancer.
She was accepted onto a clinical trial, and within six months her tumours had shrunk by 60%.
She started the 186-mile ride in her home town on Friday and hopes to complete the challenge by arriving at the London hospital later.
Rose first started to notice symptoms while training for a half-marathon in March 2020.
“I started to get backache when I was running, but I’d had a hip replacement a few years previously and thought the pain was just wear and tear,” she said.
Rose said her “world just stopped” when, a few months later, she found a lump in her neck and was told she had cancer.
“I have three children and a partner, and there were lots of tears – it was all very traumatic,” she told BBC Somerset.
