Ride for your life Katie
Harley- loving mum keeps on biking
The MacLennan Clan motto ‘ While I breathe, I hope’ is painted on my motorbike Katie MacLennan- White
A flamboyant mum- of- two is hoping to throttle- up her Harley Davidson and ride more than 500 miles, despite being ill with cancer.
Bike- mad Katie MacLennan- White is fighting cancer for the second time but is refusing to take it easy.
The 53- year- old, from Crosshill, is so inspiring she’s been chosen to launch Breast Way Round 2018, a 566- mile motorbike odyssey of Scotland setting off on May 25 from Rugby Park in Kilmarnock.
Katie has endured years of surgery and chemotherapy, and unfortunately her latest treatment was not successful.
She battled back from swine flu that left her in a coma for weeks in February 2016.
Charity bosses have now chosen her as the face of Breast Way Round.
Despite her illness, there is a chance Katie can manage to get on the road and help raise funds for Cancer Research UK and Target Ovarian Cancer.
Katie says the love of her family and her Harley Davidson Road King, known as McBeastie, has kept her going through the toughest of days.
She said: “The MacLennan clan motto, ‘ While I breathe, I hope’ is actually painted on my motorbike.
“That’s how I live my life and that mantra has carried me through.
“While I still have breath in my body I will fight to be here for my own loved ones and do everything I can to help bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. Without advances in research in to cancer, I wouldn’t still be here.
“I’ll never forget the first time I took part in Breast Way Round.
“The stunning scenery and the camaraderie was incredible. I was near the front of a procession of around 80 motorbikes as we drove closer to a waterfall at the top of Glencoe. I remember looking in my wing mirror at a sea of pink stretching all the way down to the bottom of the glen. “Inside my motorbike helmet I was crying. I’d lost my own dad Murdo to cancer so it was a really emotional moment that will stay with me always.”
But nothing could have prepared Katie for how she felt in July 2014 when tests revealed she had stage three ovarian cancer. She had visited the accident and emergency department with excruciating stomach pains but had also endured symptoms for nine months including constant bloating and back pain that hadn’t been picked up.
Katie said: “I was so very calm that I remember the doctor asking, ‘ do you understand what I’m telling you?
“I just put my fighting head on. The battle was on and I was going to get through this.”
On August 4, 2014, Katie endured a 10- hour operation at the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow to remove the cancer. She later went through the side effect of losing her hair during six lots of chemotherapy that finished just two days before Christmas. By spring 2015, Katie was well enough to take part in the Breast Way Round bike ride.
But in February 2016, Katie faced a second fight for life after developing swine flu and two blood clots in her lungs.
Katie said: “I felt seriously ill when I went in to hospital on February 9 then the next thing I knew it, I woke up again in mid March.
“That spring, recovering from being in a coma was so hard. I couldn’t move at all at first and I had to spend a long time on the ward learning to walk again. It was a frightening time.”
It was a hammer blow when cancer returned in February 2017 and Katie endured a second operation followed by more chemotherapy treatment which wasn’t successful.
But she is supported every step of the way by her husband, Ian White, 53, sons, Aaron, 26, and Nathan, 25, daughters- in- law Claire, 25, and Kim, 28, as well as her sister Paula Maclennan, 59. And Katie gets great joy from her grandchildren, Emily, four, Murran, two, and Cameron who was born on January 6.
Katie said: “It’s so important that people support Cancer Research UK to help future generations so once day cancer will be cured.”
Breast Way Round chairwoman Jacqui Monaghan is calling all bikers to saddle up and join the trip.
She said: “It’s a stunning setting for what will be the most amazing three days on wheels. Pink Mohicans, guys in decorated bras, pink storm troopers, tutus, feathers, glitter, you name it, we’ve got it.”
Breast Way Round runs between May 25 and May 27. It costs £ 20 to register and bikers should also raise funds for Cancer Research UK and Target Ovarian Cancer.
See www. breastwayround. co. uk