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Annabel Staff with Yes to Life founder and chairman Robin Daly who will also be cycling to Paris next month |
French revolutions in Paris charity ride
Woman set to take on epic cycle in bid to raise funds to pay for her dad’s cancer treatment
CONTROVERSY surrounding the rationing of drug treatments on the NHS is brought into sharp relief by the pains Annabel Staff is going to to help her father, Brian, survive prostate cancer.
The 25-year-old music photographer who has snapped the likes of The Gossip, Fallout Boy and The Klaxons, is cycling 280 miles between Greenwich and Paris in a bid to raise £25,000 to pay for vaccine therapy.
The treatment, which “teaches” white blood cells how to resist and even eradicate cancerous growth from the bones, is still in the early stages of research and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) has yet to recommend it to the NHS for funding.
But Annabel believes it is her father’s only chance of beating the disease. Mr Staff, 62, a retired area sales manager for Ford cars, was recently told that chemotherapy or steroids would do nothing to combat the aggressive disease and radiotherapy would merely soothe the symptoms.
Annabel, who lives in Anson Road, Tufnell Park, says that on some days her father finds it difficult to walk because of the pressure the tumour places on his spine.
“When my mother first told me seven years ago I was just in shock. But the thought that my dad – a strong, fit healthy man who is still relatively young – has this terrible disease growing inside him has only hit me in the past year,” she said.
Mr Staff, who lives in Essex, has undergone brachytherapy, a form of radiotherapy administered using small rods implanted directly on to the tumour, and other alternative treatments to stem the growth of mutated cells.
Annabel said: “The most important thing for people with cancer is to research.
“The NHS are so strict with funds that they don’t even suggest options unless you ask – even with radiotherapy and brachytherapy, my dad’s actually had to ask for it.”
Annabel is now working with Kentish Town-based charity Yes To Life on her charity ride to Paris, which is set to take place next month.
Although she attends the gym twice a week, is a regular cyclist, and practises Pilates, she has experienced her most gruelling physical exercise while training in the past few months.
Since mid-June she has completed four major training runs, cycling for up to 70 miles each time, including one trip to Brighton and another from Camden to St Albans and back.
Annabel said: “I try to go up Adelaide Road [in Chalk Farm] as much as possible because that’s really steep, which helps to strengthen my legs.
“After the Brighton run I was utterly wiped out.
“To think I have to do that consecutively for four days is really tough.
“When it gets really painful I just think about all the stuff my Dad is going through and how it’s nothing compared to that.
“Getting through it will rely on mental stamina on the day.”
For more details of the treatment or to sponsor Annabel go to www.forthelifeofbrian.co.uk |
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