Gaz gears up for cycling heroics after terminal diagnosis
Finding out you have incurable cancer at any age, let alone in your 20s, is enough to stop anyone in their tracks.
But not Gaz Emmerson, who is getting back on his bike with his wife-to-be, dad and best pals to raise cash to research his illness. He has already raised £15,500.
The 28-year-old from Ford, near Shrewsbury, has Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of bone and tissue cancer which primarily affects teenagers and young adults, and is riding from Lands End to John O'Groats this June to raise money for Sarcoma UK.
It comes after the warehouse manager was first diagnosed at the age of just 21, a blow which he admits left him numb.
"I was on so much morphine that it didn't really sink in. It was more the reaction of my fiancee Zoe and my mum that hurt me."
It initially came as a huge shock to Liverpool fan Gaz, who thought that pains he was having were simply a result of overdoing it at the gym. "I'd always been fairly fit and I thought I'd just overstretched something. First I was recommended to go to physio, which didn't help. I left it but eventually went to the orthopaedic hospital in Gobowen (Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Hospital) where they ran a load of tests and gave me a diagnosis. I had a tumour at the bottom of my back the size of two tennis balls."
Over the past seven years, he's beaten cancer three times, but each time it has returned more aggressively and spread to different parts of his body. In November last year, he found out it was back for a fourth time, now in his lungs, lymph nodes and brain, and his diagnosis became terminal.
But rather than dwell on the news, he wrote a bucket list and set himself the mammoth endurance challenge.
The plan is to complete the cycling fundraiser, before marrying his childhood sweetheart Zoe, who he's been with since his mid teens, in July. Gaz is also keen on travelling to China, Argentina and Brazil, which he hopes to do when the pandemic situation allows.
Gaz's challenge is made all the more extraordinary by the fact he is training while having chemotherapy. He is currently down in London where he is having regular chemo sessions at hospital.
He will be joined by Zoe, his dad Andy and three of his best pals on the ride, and is looking forward to a heroes reception when he makes his fourth stop in Shrewsbury in the 13-day ride.
So far a video which Gaz made to tell his story has been viewed more than 4,400 times on Facebook and hundreds of times on YouTube.
He hopes that part of his legacy will be increased awareness around the condition and well as vital funds to go towards research to help save young lives.
"Sarcoma UK is the only national charity that funds vital research and campaigns for better treatments for all types of Sarcoma," he said. "This is currently a hugely underfunded area. The charity gets no government funding whatsoever and because of that treatments and survival rates are not moving forward quickly enough. The first line drugs used to treat Sarcomas were developed 40 years ago."
He added: "I want to get my story out there and raise awareness, and for people to get checked. If I'd gone to a doctor a bit sooner I might be in a better situation."
To get behind Gaz's fundraising mission visit justgiving.com/fundraising/teamgazemmerson
