Skydiving is ‘nothing’ next to friend’s cancer treatment, fundraiser says
Wendy Hand will take to the skies to raise funds for menopause and mesothelioma charities
JUMPING out of a plane is “nothing” compared to her best friend’s cancer treatment, a determined charity fundraiser says.
Wendy Hand will take on her first ever skydive at the age of 60 later this year, all to raise money for two good causes close to her heart.
She will free-fall from the skies above Yorkshire on 26 September in aid of Menopause Support Shetland – a group she herself set up – and Mesothelioma UK.
That is in support of her best friend of 52 years, Sue Farrall, who is currently receiving treatment for the rare and aggressive cancer, which is caused by exposure to asbestos.
Already she had passed a quarter of her £2,000 target, but wants to keep pushing to raise as much for the two charities as possible. You can donate to her fundraiser here.
Hand said she had always wanted to skydive and had “thought about it for years, but never had the bottle”.
But after she blurted out the words “I could do a skydive” during a conversation about charity fundraising, it was time for her to finally give it a go.
“I turned 60 earlier this year and so it’s got to the point where I thought, ‘I’m actually just going to go for it’,” she told Shetland News.
“It’s always been something at the back of my mind.
“I did get very close to doing it when I was about 18 but my grandmother put her foot down, she was convinced I was going to kill myself.
“It’s a tandem jump, I’m quite excited. The thought of free-falling, it really excites me.”
She will leap from a plane later this year down in Yorkshire, near to where she was brought up – before she moved to Shetland, where she now lives in Dunrossness.
Hand is splitting the money raised between the two causes she feels most strongly about.
She explained that she set up the Menopause Support Shetland group four years ago after going through the menopause herself, and finding she had nobody to confide in.
“There was nobody around for me to talk to,” she said. “I didn’t have any older females in my family.
“I wanted to give people somebody to talk to, and it’s just grown from there and gone on to become a charity.”
The group meets three times a month in different venues, with one session in Lerwick and pop-ups visiting areas such as Yell and Skeld in recent months.
Hand said it was hugely important for members to have other people to talk to about their experiences with the menopause.
“It gives people more confidence to talk about it,” she said.
“People will come with new symptoms, and we can either say ‘that happened to me and this helped’, or ‘that’s new – let’s find out more about that’.”
She said the menopause could have severe health effects for some, especially if they were unsure what was happening to them.
A couple had been left feeling suicidal, she said, but after coming to the group “we’ve been able to help them come through that”.
Others had lost their jobs because their employers did not fully understand why they were having so much time off work, Hand said.
“Four years ago Davina McCall did a programme about it which seemed to make it more okay for people to speak in public about it,” she added.
“We want to put more resources in for people to come in and get therapies, like meditation coping mechanisms so people are able to look after their own wellbeing.”
Another aim is to be able to go into workplaces and hold workshops on how managers can help support staff going through the menopause.
“Some male dominated employers may not want to raise that subject,” she added.
Mesothelioma awareness
Hand is also trying to raise as much as possible for Mesothelioma UK in aid of her best friend of more than five decades, Sue Farrall, who was diagnosed with mesothelioma in her early 50s.
A rare and aggressive form of cancer, it is usually caused by breathing in or swallowing asbestos fibres.
Hand said it was “unusual” for a woman of Farrall’s age to be diagnosed, adding it was usually men over the age of 75 who were affected.
“She could have got it from a little piece of asbestos in a workplace she’s been in,” she said.
The mesothelioma manifested itself in Farrall’s abdomen and chest walls, and Hand said that treatment had been intense.
“She’s had massive, huge operations – radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy,” Hand said.
“But she knows it’s just giving her time. She’s been taking part in trials to help other people, but sadly it won’t make much difference to her.”
Hand said she wanted to raise awareness for Mesothelioma UK as well as funds, as it was “not as common” as asbestosis and therefore lesser known.
Despite her diagnosis, Hand said her best friend is “still so upbeat”.
“I just felt that if she can do that, then I can do this. Jumping out of a plane is nothing.”
Anyone who wants to get in touch with Menopause Support Shetland can do so through their Facebook page or their website.
Hand added that, for anyone going through the menopause, their peer support was “really valuable”.
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