Woman marks her 10 years free of breast cancer by fundraising for the unit where she was treated
A woman who is about to celebrate her 10th year of being free of breast cancer is setting about raising money for the hospital unit where she was treated by raffling off a piece of her photo art.
Sarah Nippress is aiming to fundraise over the coming year for the My WiSH Charity who support the breast care unit at the West Suffolk Hospital, in Bury St Edmunds, and has launched her campaign during October which also happens to be Breast Cancer Awareness month.
The first photo she is planning to kickstart her initiative with is a 16in x 16in image of a dandelion aptly entitled “Make a WiSH No 2” and all her supporters have to do is donate £2 or more via her fundraising web page at www.justgiving.com/LockedInphotoArt and the winner will be drawn out of the hat at the end of this month.
Sarah, who lives in Sudbury with her husband Trevor and two children aged 16 and 12, was diagnosed with the illness in October 2012 when she was just 32 years old.
She said she felt a lump in her breast which led to her diagnosis, treatment at the hospital along with two operations including a mastectomy.
Sarah said: “I felt it one day when I was washing and it turned out that it was quite an aggressive lump and I was lucky that I did get it checked out.”
And she urged men and women to check themselves out for any form of cancer.
“I want to try and get across that men and women need not be afraid to check themselves out to try and catch any possible cancer sooner rather than later,” she said.
“All is well now and that is all thanks to the absolutely amazing staff at the breast care unit at West Suffolk Hospital. They saw me through my initial consultation, scans and biopsies and through two surgeries. Then the hospital’s fabulous cancer unit saw me through 16 month’s-worth of chemotherapy.
“I had no complaints; every step of my treatment was carried out with compassion and efficiency.
“Everything ran so smoothly right from my first consultation. They put a lot of care into me and everyone made me feel that I was not going through it alone.”
Now she wants to try and repay the love and care she received with her fundraising campaign.
Sarah, who is a studio manager for a marketing firm based in Borley, near Long Melford, started taking photos during the first lockdown.
“It was inspired during the slowed down world of the first lockdown 2020 when an obsession for creating something ‘different’ from some of my normal photos, snowballed into a gallery of over 350 pictures of wild flowers, shop bought flowers and other botanics.” she said.
“All images were taken by me and enhanced using mobile phone editing tools. It was amazing what a true amateur could create.
“I had been planning to do some fundraising in the lead up to my 10 year ‘anniversary’ and that kind of starts now,” she added.
Sally Daniels, fundraising manager, said “It’s wonderful to hear Sarah’s story and how well she is doing since her treatment 10 years ago. Raising money with this stunning dandelion wish photo is a perfect way to start Sarah’s fundraising endeavour and we hope people will support her and, in turn, support their local breast unit”.