Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Dad’s illness inspires couple in bridge abseil
ANDREW BARGH
A young Monklands couple took on a daring abseil challenge to help fund research into brain tumours.
Mollie Reid, 20, from Airdrie and boyfriend Andrew McDonald, 22, of Plains, completed a free- fall abseil from the iconic Forth Rail Bridge, with a drop of 165 feet onto the sandy beach below.
Mechanical engineering student Mollie was inspired to raise funds because her father Colin, 52, is currently very ill, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour just six weeks after his 50th birthday.
Mollie said: “I was really excited about doing the abseil, although for Andrew it was a different story!
“I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the views from the bridge were absolutely spectacular.
“Taking on the abseil for Brain Tumour Research was really important to me as my dad’s brain tumour has become aggressive and he is now really ill.
“Dad was originally diagnosed with a low-grade astrocytoma brain tumour after having experienced a heightened sense of smell and déjà vu.
“He had surgery at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
“I was really shocked to discover that fewer than 20 per cent of brain tumour patients survive beyond five years, compared with an average of 50 per cent across all cancers.
“In this day and age, we tend to think that there are answers to everything, so to learn that there isn’t really anything more that can be done for Dad is heartbreaking.
“I am so grateful to everyone who has donated to our fundraising page, and very pleased that between us we have raised almost £1400.
“I sincerely hope our efforts will help raise awareness of this awful disease and draw attention to the historic under-funding of research which has gone on for far too long.”
Joe Woollcott, community fundraising manager for Brain Tumour Research in Scotland, said: “We would like to thank Mollie and Andrew for their abseil challenge to support Brain Tumour Research.
“C o l i n ’s story reminds us that 16,000 patients are diagnosed with brain tumours each year and these kill more men under 45 than prostate rostate cancer and more women under d 35 than h breast b cancer.”