Edwina Rapley took cancer in her stride. Now she tells JO HAYWOOD why she is striding out for cancer research

THE night before Edwina Rapley found a lump in her breast she was tap dancing on stage in the musical 42nd Street. "That's how unwell I felt," she says, with a burst of laughter. "I felt absolutely fit as a fiddle."

Edwina, 51, of Aspin Park Road in Knaresborough, is a part-time receptionist at Vital Online, which designs host websites, and is passionate about the theatre.

In her youth she sang on the southern club circuit, but now she exercises her creative muscle as a member of Harrogate Phoenix Players.

After helping to clear the stage on Sunday, November 4 last year after a successful run of the all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza 42nd Street, Edwina and her husband John went home and fell into bed in an exhausted heap.

"My hand just happened to brush my bust and there it was - a lump," she said. "I made an appointment to see my doctor the very next day. I knew this was not something I should put off."

Her doctor sent her to see a consultant, who carried out a mammogram, an ultrasound and a needle biopsy. "I think he knew then," she said, "but I had to wait a week for news. It was the worst week of my life."

Edwina and John decided not to say anything to their children, Karen, a teacher in North Carolina, and Trevor, who lives just up the road in Harrogate, because they didn't want to worry them unnecessarily.

That all changed a week later, however, when the consultant confirmed that Edwina had breast cancer.

"I have to say I took it very well," she says."I knew there was nothing I could do to change the situation, so I might as well stay as positive as possible."

John was less stoical. He had lost his mother and sister to breast cancer, and the prospect of losing his wife was unbearable.

"Everyone was in a bit of a panic," says Edwina. "But I managed to remain quite upbeat. I knew that as long as I had John with me, I could handle anything."

She had a lumpectomy on December 7 and got a very welcome early Christmas gift on December 18 when her consultant told her she was in the clear.

"I remember him saying that my war was over," she says. "But to be honest, everything happened so quickly that I hadn't even registered that the war had begun."

On Sunday, October 6, almost a year on from her own cancer scare, Edwina and John will be doing their bit to help others affected by the disease by taking part in the Stride For Life at Rawcliffe Bar Country Park in York.

This ten kilometre walk, part of a national push to raise more than £600,000 for Cancer Research UK, will kick off with a mass aerobic warm-up at 11.30am before the noon walk along the river, through Museum Gardens to Lendal Bridge, across the river and back again.

"I'm really looking forward to the Stride for Life," says Edwina. "It will be a real celebration of life. I'm sure I will be walking round with tears in my eyes the whole time."

She raised almost £400 in the Race For Life in Harrogate earlier this year and was deeply affected by the tributes and celebrations she witnessed.

"I was crying buckets virtually all the way round," she says. "There was one 85-year-old woman doing it in memory of her daughter; twins doing it for their grandma; and one woman in a wheelchair who got up and walked over the finishing line.

"The atmosphere was absolutely electric. I had planned to walk it, but I got picked up by the intense feelings of the crowd and ended up running for a while. My husband couldn't believe it when he saw me sprinting along."

Edwina is particularly looking forward to the Stride For Life because she will be able to walk with her husband by her side.

"There was nothing John could really do to help me last year," she explains. "Now we can do this walk together and show everyone we have not been beaten.

"I am naturally a very positive person, but deep down I suspect my husband thinks it hasn't actually hit me yet that I have had cancer.

"In my mind though, I had it, it was treated and it's gone. I'm not living for last year, I'm living for today."

How to take part

If you would like to take part in the Stride For Life, call 0845 602 1940, e-mail strideforlife@cancer.org.uk, register online at www.cancerresearchuk.org/strideforlife, or fill in the entry form on the left and return it to: Angela Mountfield, Cancer Research UK, 16 Pavilion Business Park, Royds Hall Road, Leeds LS12 6AJ.

Updated: 09:20 Monday, September 02, 2002