Giving hope to those affected
by secondary breast cancer

Research. Support. Education.

We have raised over £1,000,000!

26th January 2022

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From the first day I sat in my hospital chair to begin a gruelling chemotherapy regime, I knew that when I felt ‘well enough’ I wanted to make a change. I wanted to raise awareness and funds to support research into secondary breast cancer. Most importantly, I wanted to ensure that people knew about the disease.  

I remember writing that quote as part of our launch back in 2017. When Euan and I registered Make 2nds Count as a charity, in all honesty we had no idea what lay ahead.  We were guided by our passion to ensure that secondary breast cancer was no longer forgotten and our drive to educate as many people as we physically could on the signs and symptoms of the disease. We often wonder if we had been educated on the signs then perhaps my diagnosis would have been different. Finally, we were guided by the literally overwhelming amount of support that we received from our family and friends. 

 

To donate £150,000 to research within our first year reinforced the 'need' for Make 2nds Count to exist. Patients were reaching out from across the UK asking more about the work we were doing and interest in the charity from within the cancer community was increasing rapidly. 

As our first year drew to an end,  Euan and I were faced with a difficult decision: did we keep going as a small charity within Edinburgh or should we take a leap of faith and invest in team members to allow us to grow and develop?

Needless to say we made the right decision and since then as a result of the dedication of our team the charity trajectory continues to increase year on year.

As the pandemic took hold we were only entering our second year of operating. In many ways we were still ‘finding our feet’ due to the exponential rate of growth the charity had experienced since its launch in 2018. 

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2020 saw a number of charitable organisations either shut their doors or scale down their operations due to the impact of the pandemic. One of the founding values of Make 2nds Count is to place patients at the heart of everything that we do and, as a result, we collectively decided to continue to operate at full capacity, increasing our service provision to meet the continued need of secondary breast cancer patients and their families. 

As we transitioned into 2021, the team continued to develop our support service provisions which culminated in our inaugural secondary breast cancer patient retreats bringing together 40 patients from across the UK for a 4 day fully funded wellbeing retreat. Not only did the retreats provide welcome respite from the pressures of daily life, but they also built friendships and informed, empowered and most importantly of all gave hope to attendees. I look forward to seeing this programme expand in 2022. 

Whilst clinical research generally ground to a halt due to the closure of the laboratories, our research board and team of medical advisors continued to proactively seek out opportunities to fund research projects with grants being awarded to The University of Liverpool, University of Warwick and Professor Dame Fallowfield.

Reaching our £1 million fundraising milestone is beyond any expectations that I had that day in the chemotherapy chair back in 2017. It is just the most exciting start to what we predict will be another very productive year for us supported by our incredible team and dedicated board of trustees. 

And while we look forward to achieving so much more, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has helped us reach that incredible goal. Our supporters really do provide a lifeline and without them we would be unable to make the progress we have accomplished in raising awareness of this disease, in funding dedicated research and in facilitating projects like access to patient trials.

Here’s to the future, to making a change, giving hope to those affected by secondary breast cancer and continuing to Make 2nds Count.