8:37am Monday 15th March 2010
By Nicola Fifield
A DOCTOR who was diagnosed with cancer only eight weeks after the birth of her youngest son is to celebrate her survival by taking part in the Jane Tomlinson York 10k.
Rachel Doswell, who was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in June 2007, has now been in remission for 18 months.
The 36-year-old, who worked at York Medical Group, in Acomb, before falling ill, thought she had beaten the disease after an initial round of chemotherapy – but a few months later suffered a relapse.
She then had to undergo further chemotherapy, a stem-cell transplant and a gruelling course of radiotherapy before finally being given the news the cancer had gone.
Rachel now hopes to raise £1,000 for the Jane Tomlinson Appeal when she lines up alongside thousands of other runners on August 1. She said: “I’ve spent such a lot of time thinking about not being here, I thought it was time to start living and doing something for other people.”
Rachel, who has returned to work as a locum GP, lives near Knaresborough with her husband, Ian, who works as a dentist, and their three children, Libby, eight, Max, four, and Finlay, two.
She said: “Being a GP puts a different slant on things – your patients don’t expect you to be ill and a little bit of knowledge is always a scary thing. It was also hard for the health professionals, especially the nurses, because they didn’t know whether to treat me as a normal patient or not. Initially, my whole world fell apart, but then I realised the children still needed feeding and they still needed clean clothes and that’s what kept me going.
“The worst part was the stem-cell transplant when I was in isolation for a month at St James’ Hospital in Leeds. The kids couldn’t come in and that was very difficult.”
To sponsor Rachel, visit her online fundraising page, justgiving.com/RachelDoswell To enter the run, or to volunteer for the event, visit runforall.com
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