Three Generations Walk Two Marathons in Two Weeks for Joseph

@NPTCGroup of Colleges Health and Social Care lecturer Beverley Owen-Jones along with her daughter, and granddaughter have walked two marathons over two weeks in aid of three-year-old Joseph Yandle from their community. That’s a whopping 52.4 miles, raising £664.

Joseph was officially diagnosed with stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma cancer in March this year, at just three years and two months old. As with more than half of children diagnosed with neuroblastoma, the cancer had spread throughout Joseph’s body by the time he was diagnosed, making his condition one of the most difficult kinds of childhood cancer to treat. It was at this point he was given a 40-50% chance of survival.

Swansea City fan Joseph is from Brynamman, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, but it was when the grandmother of five Beverley read an emotional post on social media by Joseph’s mother about what the effect of COVID restrictions meant for the family and their plight to try and access every possible treatment option available, through fundraising, they knew they had to get involved.

Beverley explains: ‘’Although we didn’t know the family personally, when I read a social media post Joseph’s mother had written, about having to swap care with Joseph’s father and fill time in Cardiff as she couldn’t bear to drive back home alone, all due to COVID restrictions – just broke my heart. I told my daughter that we need to do something.

‘’I’m no runner and we all enjoy walking, plus it was manageable for all of us so the decision was made. Work commitments affected the way we managed our walks, my granddaughter Sophie works in the evening, therefore did a few solo walks in the morning. In the evening, my daughter Victoria and I could walk together. Some days, we all walked together and we made sure that our last walk included us all. We then also posted our daily mileage on Facebook to keep everyone updated.

“It was more difficult than I thought, we needed to average three to four miles a day. We walked in the rain and sunshine, and yes, went through numerous blister plasters too! The hardest thing was leaving my dog behind every day, he knows when I’m putting on my walking boots, it’s ‘walkies’, but it was just too far for him.

“We are a very close family, but what was lovely was having the time to have long chats plus raising so much money for Joseph, it is just amazing.  Anything we could do to help was worth the blisters!’’

The money will now go to Joseph’s GoFundMe page which you can find here. His family has also set up a Facebook page called ‘Help Joseph ‘Hulk Smash’ Cancer which can be found Here