Bravery of Middlesbrough cancer survivor

May 9 2010 by Helen Rae, Sunday Sun

A BRAVE mum has decided to renew her wedding vows after successfully battling cancer after being given only a 3% chance of survival.

Mandy Connor, 41, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2007, after struggling with illness for more than a year.

It was just nine days before her wedding to husband Andy, 47, on July 12, 2006, that she was diagnosed with the deadly disease.

The blow came after a number of trips to James Cook University Hospital and Newcastle's Freeman Hospital.

Mandy explained: “We carried on with the wedding and it gave me something to focus on.”

“But it was absolutely horrendous to be told just days before I was getting married that I only had a 3% chance of survival.

“Although I’d been feeling very unwell before my diagnosis, I never for one minute thought it would be cancer – that had just not entered my mind.

“When I was told the news Andy and I burst into tears.

“There was a time when I thought I wouldn’t survive. But I was determined to fight and managed to remain as positive as I could.”

Before her wedding at Middlesbrough Register Office, Mandy had only told her mother and mother-in-law about her diagnosis.

She had kept the news from her son Thomas, 16, and her stepdaughters Megan, 17, Rachel, 19 and Nicole, 24, until she returned from her honeymoon in Turkey as she did not want to upset and worry them.

“Our wedding day was very, very emotional,” explained the concession manager at Barker and Stonehouse.

“It was especially difficult for my mother and mother-in-law as they were the only ones who knew.

“I couldn’t stop thinking I had cancer and it was constantly there at the back of my mind”.