I have lost two partners to cancer so I’m doing the Great North Run in memory of them

Karen Lindsay, who lives in Newcastle, will be doing on the Great North Run on Sunday, September 8, in memory of her two partners who died as a result of cancer.

The 62-year-old was devastated after her first partner, Jimmy Millmoor, passed away in 2007 following a diagnosis of throat cancer, then stomach cancer.

Then tragically only eight years later, her second partner, Jimmy Drinkald, died after undergoing treatment for leukaemia.

Karen, who is originally from Duns in the Scottish Borders, moved to the North East after meeting her first partner but their time was cut short after two-and-a-half years.

She said: “Jimmy was one of the most positive people you’d ever meet, even when he was given his cancer diagnosis, he never let it get him down.

“He was determined things would get better. Nobody ever had a bad word to say about Jimmy and he would never speak ill of anyone else, he was the life and soul.

“When I met him I had been going through a difficult time, and I just thought it was so amazing to meet someone like him.

“He was first diagnosed with throat cancer, I remember it starting as him complaining of a sore throat.

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“He went through all of the treatment for that and things were beginning to look more positive, but then he received the terrible news that he had stomach cancer, which was unrelated to the throat cancer he had previously.

“Again, he didn’t let it get him down he was the same Jimmy, we managed a couple of trips to Gran Canaria but he started to go downhill and required a feeding tube.

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“On the 2nd of January 2007 he had to go into hospital, he never came home and passed away on the 27th.

“Seeing someone you love going through that is horrible beyond words, I felt numb. We had to carry on though myself, his family and friends”.

Karen is taking on the Great North Run to raise money for Worldwide Cancer Research and hopes her efforts can go some way to helping find new cures and improve treatments for cancer patients.

She added: “To see a loved one go through cancer is so difficult and heart-breaking, and having to go through that all on multiple occasions is so horrible and traumatic.

“I wanted to raise money for a cancer charity because I don’t want anyone else to go through this pain.”