York mum Jo Arundel is abseiling 100 metres to raise awareness for a charity that helped her cope with a rare cancer

IT all began with a slight discomfort in her stomach, but nothing that Jo Arundel was too worried about.

"I'd had two or three months of abdominal discomfort but I put it down to female things; the time of the month, that sort of thing, or that I'd had some pizza the night before and got a tummy ache," begins Jo, 38, a hospital clerk from Clifton, York.

"It was never really bad, more of a niggle. But I thought that maybe I should get it checked out."

Jo's instinct was right. Her GP sent her for an ultrasound which showed a lump on her abdomen. A biopsy revealed she had a rare form of cancer: a gastro intestinal stromal tumour (GIST), which commonly develops in the soft tissues of the body, particularly along the digestive tract and in the stomach or small bowel.

Only 900 people a year are diagnosed with GIST, but Jo's tumour was even more rare. It was a wild-type GIST, falling into the PAWS-GIST sub category (paediatric, adolescent, wildtype and syndromic gastro intestinal stromal tumour) affecting just 0.5 in every million people.

Jo jokes now that the diagnosis is proof that she is "more than one in a million", but that shock news back in March 2015 was scary – particularly because she had not felt that ill.

And it came on top of an earlier cancer scare for the family. Years before, Jo had undergone the rollercoaster of cancer treatment as a parent. At the age of three, her son Reece was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of soft tissue tumour in the muscle between his bowel and bladder. He underwent surgery and chemotherapy and is now a healthy 17 year old at York College hoping to work in the rail industry.

Chemo and radiotherapy were not suitable for Jo's cancer: surgery was her best option to remove the tumour that she says was "the size of a tennis ball".

"My initial prognosis was potentially scary. The scans were not fully clear exactly where the tumour was attached, though it was evident it started on my intestinal tract," explains Jo.

"It was initially thought I would need a full hysterectomy and bowel removal – which would have meant I needed a stoma bag."

But luckily, surgeons at St James' Hospital, Leeds, managed to remove the tumour (whom Jo named Tarquin), without radical surgery.

"It was a four-hour operation," says Jo. "I was lucky, it could have been much worse."

Three years on and Jo is doing well. "I have micro GISTS along my small intestine, which are millimetres in size, but the doctors are not concerned. I have scans every six months. I feel fine."

Jo is now turning her attention to raising money for the charity GIST Support UK by abseiling 100 metres from The Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth. Jo, who is only 5ft tall, says it is an alarming prospect. "At over 320ft, or 64 times bigger than me, and with me being accident prone with the ability to fall over fresh air, this could be interesting!" she jokes. Jo has abseiled before, but only from half that height, when she raised money for Candlelighters, the Yorkshire charity that helps families with children facing cancer.

"This time it is going to be a lot higher which is quite daunting," says Jo, who will be doing the challenge on May 6. "Heights don't bother me, it's not being on stable ground that's more scary. When you first dangle over the edge and it is just the rope between you and the ground, that's when the best advice is: don't look down."

Jo hopes to raise at least £350 for the charity, which has been a great support to her. "The charity has helped me in different ways and I wanted to do something to help the next person diagnosed with this disease,"says Jo.

Through the charity, Jo has been invited to a specialist clinic at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, where important research is being carried out into the disease. The charity has a campaigning arm too and has been successful in persuading the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to reinstate a drug to treat PAWS-GIST sufferers.

Also boosting funds for the cause will be Jo's husband Simon, who hopes to complete a charity run later this year. It will be quite an achievement for Simon, who has previously run a marathon in aid of Candlelighters, because just four months ago he donated a kidney to his brother, Peter. Both have made good recoveries. Jo says: "Simon's new year's resolution is to get back to running. Ideally, he'd like to run a marathon the charity."

Jo says her positive attitude has helped her cope with the realities of living with cancer. "You can think 'why me?' and wallow in self pity or you can say 'I'm here, this is it'. You will have bad days but I try not to dwell on it too much – a positive attitude helps."

To support Jo in her fundraising efforts, visit: uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JoArundel