Olympian warning of blood cancer risk

Olympic athlete Dame Kelly Holmes has described the “heartbreaking” experience of losing her mother to blood cancer as she campaigns to raise awareness of the disease.

The two-time gold medal winner spoke out as it emerged more than half of British adults could not name any symptoms of the condition, despite it being one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the UK. One in 19 people will be diagnosed with blood cancer, according to the charity Bloodwise.

Dame Kelly described how her whole family was shocked when her mother was diagnosed with myeloma at the end of 2014.

She had been suffering bad colds and pneumonia during recent winters, along with back pain. But Dame Kelly said: “Me being a sportswoman I was like ‘have a massage, you’ll be fine’.”

Blood tests showed up abnormalities before a bone marrow biopsy revealed she had myeloma.

“When she was diagnosed it was a big shock because, one, I think no one had heard of myeloma,” Dame Kelly said. “We didn’t really know what it was or understand what it was.”

Her mother underwent chemotherapy and had a stem cell transplant, but died suddenly on 7 August last year, aged 64.