Run to help pay for treatment

[RandyW]

Run to help pay for treatment

Katie Wylie - The Press | Saturday, 12 July 2008

AdvertisementChristchurch cancer patient Yvonne Evans may receive a large birthday present through a run organisers hope will raise thousands of dollars for her expensive and experimental treatment.

Evans, a Parklands mother of three young children, hopes to spend her birthday at tomorrow's Run for Yvonne, an event organised by her running club to fund her treatment.

A former competitive runner and non-smoker, 37-year-old Evans was diagnosed with lung cancer in March, the day after completing a two-hour hill run.

Now Christchurch's tightknit running community is taking to Hagley Park, with the aim of raising $20,000 for Evans' hefty medical bills. Olympic Harriers member Paul Coughlan said more than 700 entries, and donations from some of New Zealand's best runners, had the event on target.

"It's startling to me the number of people who are not just entering the event and paying $15 to enter. I would say probably nearly half of the entries have an extra donation with them as well," he said.

"There's a hell of a lot of us, myself included, who are looking at her and going `Well, how easy would it be for that to be me'.

"All runners get little niggles from time to time ... All of a sudden, wham, you turn around and it's cancer. I think that's pretty scary for a lot of us."

Evans hoped to attend if she recovered from her fifth session of chemotherapy yesterday.

"Normally two days later is OK it's normally about a week later that I get sick," she said.

She has been plagued with mouth ulcers and infections since her chemotherapy began. A scan had also revealed that while the primary lesion in her lung have shrunk, spots on her bones had worsened. Her treatment has changed to Erolotinib, which costs about $4000 a time.

For information on the event: www.olympicharriers.co.nz.