Cancer survivor Joanne walking tall

Aug 24 2008 by Pauline Holt, Sunday Sun

BREAST cancer survivor Joanne Smith has got the bug for power walking.

After successfully completing the marathon MoonWalk in London this May, she is lacing up her trainers again to take part in Newcastle’s very first SunWalk two weeks today, again dressed as a ladybird.

The mum of two is one of a 17-strong team called The Sole Sisters made up of staff and mums from Whickham Parochial School who will all will be wearing red and black spotted outfits.

Joanne was diagnosed with breast cancer just over three years ago on her daughter Molly’s second birthday. She also has a son, Daniel, now 10.

She said: “It was in March 2005 I got my diagnosis. It turned out to be an aggressive form of breast cancer and after having a lumpectomy they found a second tumour in the tissue and I had to have a mastectomy.”

After six weeks of chemotherapy an MRI scan showed up cancer in her other breast and she had to have a second mastectomy. She was also put on the breast cancer drug, Herceptin.

But Joanne, a communications and event co-ordinator for Gateshead MP Sharon Hodgson, made a good recovery, helped all the way through by friends and family, many of whom supported her by doing the MoonWalk.

Joanne said: “Without my friends around me and the way they have all supported my family it would have been a very different journey.

“I’d only just recovered from my reconstructive surgery when I started training for the MoonWalk, but it was worth the effort. The atmosphere at the event was amazing . . . all those women together raising money and supporting each other was incredible.

“It was on the train journey home from London that I heard that Walk the Walk — the grant making health charity behind The SunWalks and the midnight MoonWalks in London and Edinburgh — were organising an event in Newcastle. I decided straight away that I would get a team together to take part”.

The SunWalk Newcastle at Exhibition Park follows in the footsteps of its sister event in Bristol which this year saw thousands of people power walk through the city hoping to beat last year’s fundraising of nearly £250,000.

Walk the Walk have raised over £43m for vital breast cancer causes since it was set up.

The SunWalk, sponsored nationally by Ford, Biffa and She magazine and locally by SCA Prudhoe Paper Mill, will see not just women but men and children, take to the streets of Newcastle on Sunday, September 7 power walking their way through one of three challenge distances . . . 5km, 10km and half marathon.

All those taking part will be wearing decorated bras, a trademark of Walk the Walk.

The charity’s chief executive and founder Nina Barough said: “Whether you take part with family or friends, the sense of camaraderie at the SunWalk is astounding.”

Although it is too late to enter as a walker, North people can still get involved. 

Walk the Walk is looking for enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers to hand out water, give out medals and act as marshals.

For more information phone 01483-741430 and ask for Sally B or Jenn, or e-mail volunteers@walkthewalk.org