Active mother-of-two diagnosed with incurable cancer after sore throat

A mother of two, who once feared she would not live to see her children grow up after a persistent sore throat led to an incurable blood cancer diagnosis, has expressed profound gratitude to be alive 16 years later.

Deb Gascoyne, 50, from Hagley, West Midlands, was just 34 when a precautionary blood test in July 2009 detected smouldering myeloma, an early form of blood cancer.

Mrs Gascoyne, who shares her home with husband Nick, 50, and their children, Rebecca, 21, and Sam, 19, credits a nurse's last-minute decision to take blood samples that day with an early diagnosis that potentially saved her life.

Despite experiencing two relapses over the years, Mrs Gascoyne has celebrated numerous significant family milestones.

She has also dedicated herself to fundraising, aiming to raise £250,000 to support research into new treatments and ultimately, a cure.

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So far, she has raised £248,100 for the charity Myeloma UK and she is preparing for her final fundraising challenge in May, a cycle from London to Paris, to reach her target.

Prior to her diagnosis, in 2009, Mrs Gascoyne was an active mother-of-two who worked in Human Resources (HR). Her children were two and four at the time.

It was only when she started experiencing a persistent sore throat that everything changed.

“It felt like a golf ball in my throat and I was wiped out from it every month, so I went to the GP,” she said.

“The nurse said, ‘We’ll do a throat swab and if that comes back negative and you’re still having the sore throats, we’ll send for bloods’.

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“Then, just before I left, she said, ‘Actually, do you know what? We’ll just send your bloods off now anyway’.”

Mrs Gascoyne said this split-second decision to take bloods that day led to an “early diagnosis that (she) might not have had otherwise”.

After further testing, including scans and a bone marrow biopsy, it was confirmed in July 2009 that Mrs Gascoyne had smouldering myeloma – an early form of the blood cancer – aged 34.

Feeling “totally shellshocked”, as doctors initially told her she was “too young” to be diagnosed with the condition, she started doing her own research and came across life expectancy statistics.

“At the time, there wasn’t much information from the UK, most of it was from the US, but it was saying two to five years’ life expectancy,” she said.

“So, then there was that whole fear and emotion of not seeing your children grow up, not getting old with Nick – all the things that we had plans for and were a no-brainer in our heads were suddenly up in the air.”

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About a year later, Mrs Gascoyne’s myeloma progressed to active cancer and she was put on the Myeloma XI trial in 2010, which included chemotherapy.

However, during that year, Mrs Gascoyne threw herself into fundraising and she first completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks with her family and friends.

She also connected with other patients via Myeloma UK’s support network which helped change her perspective.

“There were two women in particular who, sadly, aren’t with us anymore,” Mrs Gascoyne said.

“But at the time, they were really instrumental in helping me realise that I could still have a life and have myeloma, that I could still have a number of years ahead of me.”

Mrs Gascoyne received her first stem cell transplant in July 2011 and was then placed on maintenance chemotherapy, which she said kept her in “partial remission” for eight years.

While there was the “fear in the back of (her) head” about relapsing, Mrs Gascoyne continued to focus on fundraising, organising events such her ‘40 pubs in 40 hours challenge’.

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According to Myeloma UK, myeloma follows a relapsing-remitting pattern, where successful treatment can bring the myeloma into remission, but it is likely it will come back again.

For Mrs Gascoyne, she said she relapsed in 2019 and underwent her second stem cell transplant in September 2020, before relapsing again in November 2024.

She was given a new maintenance treatment in December 2024, which she is still receiving. While she has had some “blips” and hospital admissions along the way, she is still continuing with fundraising.

She is currently preparing for her second London to Paris cycling challenge in May, where she will be joined by family, her consultant, two of her clinical research nurses, the wife of a patient who recently died and other patients and friends.

During this time, she is also hoping to enjoy quality time with her family.

“My husband’s about to take some time out so that we can make some memories and not wait until it’s too late,” she said.

Mrs Gascoyne said she has had lots of time to “reflect” since her diagnosis, and she often wonders what might have happened if that blood test did not take place.

However, as she approaches 17 years since her diagnosis in July, she feels “grateful” as she did not think she would “have this much time”.

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“If I think about the friends I’ve lost along the way, and what their families have missed out on, I am remarkably lucky to have a slower and less aggressive form of myeloma,” Mrs Gascoyne said.

“I’ve seen my kids hit their major birthdays, I’ve watched my son with his girlfriend and my daughter becoming a paramedic, and you just think, those were things I could only have dreamt of when I first got that diagnosis.

“I am really lucky and really blessed to have seen them through all of that.”

She wants to continue raising awareness of myeloma and to encourage others to “listen to (their) body and be their own advocate”.

“I’d say to others, try and think positively where you can, because no matter what you read, I like to think that stories like mine show that there is always hope.”

To find out more or to donate, visit Mrs Gascoyne’s latest fundraising page at ride.myeloma.org.uk/deb-gascoyne or visit Myeloma UK’s website at www.myeloma.org.uk.