My Story

Hello and thank you very much for taking some time to consider donating towards the CT Scanner for the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

On 25th March I will flying out to the Sahara Desert in Morocco to take part in the world's toughest footrace. The Marathon des Sables is a 250km unsupported race over 6 days. The terrain includes the highest sand dunes in Morocco, salt flats, mountains, dried river beds, volcanic rock fields and plenty more sand. The temperature can reach mid 40 degrees celsius.

I will be carrying all my equipment, including cooking, sleeping and medical equipment and food for 6 days.

This will be my second time. I completed the race in 2014.. just enough time has passed in order to forget how challenging this race is.. I hope that the training that I have been doing for the last few months will be enough to see me across the finish line again.

This is a personal challenge and I have funded the entry to the race and all my travel expenses and associated costs.

The aim of this page to raise money for a CT scanner for Great Western Hospital in Swindon, in memory of my mother Julia Langton.

My mother Julia, died on January 16th 2019 after an extremely spirited argument with stage 4 bowel cancer. She was initially given 3 months to live, (6 at the most) without chemotherapy. Thanks to her positivity, strength and sheer bloody mindedness she battled it out for almost 3 years. Mum received most of her treatment at the Great Western Hospital under the incredibly skilled and kind care of Dr. Sarah Lowndes and her team of nurses. Mum hated the treatments but loved visiting the nurses and their care of her turned a very dark time in to a lighter one.

Everyone has a very different experience of dealing with a diagnosis of this kind. At the outset there are so many unknowns, so many questions, so many fears and so many tests. Travelling too and from departments, doctors and hospitals, sometimes many miles away from home. The nearest radiotherapy unit is Churchill Hospital in Oxford… not easy if you need to go daily for treatment.

The Great Western Hospital is opening a Radiotherapy unit this summer thanks to some incredible fund raising efforts already and this will make an enormous difference to 600-800 patients and their families every year.

However, the funding falls short of raising enough for the all important CT scanner. This is where you can help!

The specialist CT scanner allows a patient to lie flat in the proposed treatment position and then uses x-rays and a computer to gain detailed images that can be used to design their individual treatment plan.

Travelling for this planning appointment is an additional stress (emotionally, financially and practically) at an already incredibly difficult time for patients.

With the new CT scanner patients will be able to have their planning appointment here in Swindon as well as all their radiotherapy treatments.

Thanks to advances in technology, radiographers in Swindon will be able to share patient CT Scans with the expert planning team based at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford.

They will use this information to create bespoke and targeted radiotherapy treatment plans for each patient. This gives patients the expertise provided by a regional centre of cancer excellence whilst offering patients cancer care close to home and their support networks.

Over £400,000 has been secured already.

The need is to raise a further £94,000 to get this over the line!

With your generosity we can make this happen.

Thank you so much for your support.. it will be spurring me on and through the Sahara!

In memory of Julia Mary Langton 1951-2019 - Lover of life, family, people, champagne and horses.. not neccessarily in that order.