COUSINS CONQUER CANCER
Pair urge public to get involved in campaign after their cancer fight
TWO Scots cousins are looking ahead to Christmas with hope and gratitude after both being diagnosed with cancer during the pandemic.
Amy Howard and Catriona Lynch from Edinburgh are in remission and yesterday they helped launch Cancer Research UK’s Play Your Part campaign.
Amy, 42, who overcame non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Catriona, 44, who has recovered from breast cancer this year hope their stories will inspire people to make a difference.
In October, they led Amy’s Army to raise more than £7000 for life-saving research by taking part in Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life 5K in Edinburgh.
Amy, mum to twins Michael and William, nine, said: “It felt like the bottom dropped out of my world when I was told I had cancer. But thanks to amazing research over the past 50 years, I’m through cancer and can look forward to Christmas. We were diagnosed quickly which meant treatment could start almost immediately.”
Amy thought she may have Covid when she first took ill. But after that and asthma were ruled out, she was sent to Edinburgh’s Western General for tests where a radiologist told her it looked likely she had lymphoma.
She said: “I’d been looking at messages on my phone from friends chatting about furlough, redecorating, gardening, birthdays and now I was being told I had cancer.” Amy had two tumours, a 17cm mass in her chest putting pressure on her lungs and a smaller tumour near her liver.
She started chemotherapy nine days after her first visit to hospital and completed treatment on September 22.
On November 12, 2020, Catriona was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She was supported every step of the way by Amy and her sister Joanna, who is a doctor at Ninewells hospital, Dundee.
On February 9 this year, she had a mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery at St John’s hospital in Livingston.
Lisa Adams, Cancer Research UK spokeswoman in Scotland, said: “We will never stop striving to find better treatments but we can’t do it alone.
“That’s why we want to harness the ‘people power’ of our supporters, because the progress we make relies on every hour of research, every pound donated and everyone who gets involved.”