NowIcandomybit to raise cash... and to honour Krystal
STEVEN Scott cannot bear to part with any precious reminders of his beloved wife Krystal.
Nearly a year since she died, Krystal’s car still sits in the driveway and, upstairs in the bedroom, her hairdryer is plugged into the wall.
Her clothes still hang in the wardrobe.
One day, he says, he’ll be ready to face the task of moving her possessions.
But for now Steven has a bigger priority – to raise money in Krystal’s name and help prevent other families going through the heartache he has faced.
On May 21 at Glasgow Green, Steven will be one of the first men to take part in Cancer Research UK’s Race For Life, until now a womenonly fundraising event. For the first time the charity is calling on men to sign up for the Family 5k events.
Steven, 34, said: “I want to do this for Krystal. Cancer affects entire families – and entire families want to do what they can to fight back.”
Steven, from East Kilbride, will join forces with Krystal’s best friend, Rachel Smith, with whom she ran her dance studio and school, Dance Passion. The pair had been friends for 10 years and were like sisters.
Rachel, 25, said: “I think the world of Steven for making my friend so happy. A bunch of us from the dance school and lots of Krystal’s friends did Race For Life last year only weeks after she died and we’re delighted Steven will be able to join us this year.”
Krystal thought she had a chest infection when she felt wheezy while teaching an exercise class in April 2014.
But one of her pupils, a nurse, feared she may have fluid on her lung and told her to get it checked out.
At Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, tests did show fluid on her lung but also a mass that a biopsy revealed was cancerous.
Steven still remembers the strength that Krystal showed when she was told the devastating news.
He said: “As well as the main mass, there were smaller tumours on the lining of the lung and the fluid was also cancerous.
“It was inoperable and within a week of her diagnosis we told her condition was terminal.”
Steven added: “Krystal still refused to believe the cancer could kill her. She was convinced she would beat it.
“She was already really fit exercise-wise and even though she’d been fitted with a drain to get rid of the fluid on her lung, she was back teaching her dance classes within weeks of being diagnosed.”
The couple, who met in 2010, had spoken about marriage but put off plans to save for a wedding.
In June 2014, however, on a trip to watch the tennis at Wimbledon, Steven decided he couldn’t wait any longer to ask Krystal to be his wife.
He added: “We planned it all in just eight weeks and it was the most amazing and special day.
“To watch Krystal come down the aisle looking so beautiful you’d never for a minute have guessed she was having treatment for cancer. “She took my breath away.” Aware her cancer treatment could affect her fertility, Krystal and Steven looked into treatment to have embryos frozen, but it wasn’t to be.
For around 12 months, a drug called Tarveca inhibited proteins in Krystal’s body that affected cell growth and as a result her tumour shrank considerably.
More aggressive treatment was needed and six rounds of oral chemo
followed. But at the beginning of 2016 Krystal was told her tumours had spread to her stomach and liver. There was nothing more doctors could do.
Throughout her illness, specialists were at a loss to explain why nonsmoking, physically-fit Krystal had contracted the cancer in the first place.
Steven said: “To give you an idea of the type of person Krystal was, she’d runfor cancera half marathoncharities justto raisefive months money before she passed away.
Race “She’d For also Life done and Cancer Pretty Research’s Muddy mined.events It herself.was one Sheof the was things that I deter- loved most about her – her spirit.”
Krystal was cared for at St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie for the last three weeks of her life until she passed away peacefully, with Steven at her side, on April 11 last year, aged just 32.
Steven, a transport planner, has put energy into his fund-raising efforts. As well as Race For Life, he’s training for a half marathon and hopes to climb Kilimanjaro with a group of friends to raise funds in 2018.
He said: “Krystal would be proud of what we’re doing.
“We had so many plans, both of us, and she’ll always be a part of me.
“It’s everywhere. Cancer is everywhere. We’ve got to do all we can to one day finally find a cure.”