It has been a few weeks since we last sent out our last update.  A lot has happened since the beginning of lockdown.  It doesn’t seem many weeks ago that we were preparing for melanoma awareness month, and now here we are, May is behind us and we are already in June.  Have we really been in lockdown all this time?  So much has happened in the last few months, yet it seems as if we have been stuck in some kind of time warp. 

For our patients and the families that we support, the last three months have been very stressful indeed.  Appointments rearranged, some cancelled and very sadly, we have lost some of our very dear patients during this time.  This has somehow seemed even more poignant, losing friends amongst the chaos that we have been struggling to come to terms with.  There is no doubt, it has been extremely difficult.

As I said since the beginning of lockdown, we have managed to continue to work through this crisis and I can honestly say, that despite the increase in calls, correspondence etc, we have not missed a beat :  I often say that we are a small, but mighty team. We have done what we have been doing since day one, supporting patients and families. 

May of course, was a very busy month for us and for many other charities who work in melanoma.  We all did what we could to provide as much information as possible about melanoma and we know that the sharing of facts throughout the month proved very interesting and gained a lot of interaction.

Throughout the month of May, we had several fundraising events going on.  These weren’t ‘official’ events, they were organised by some of our supporters and we are very grateful indeed.  One of our Trustees, Paula Bridge took to the streets and involved her whole family in 1000 miles for Melanoma UK;  Helen Middleton (herself a stage 4 melanoma patient) got together with a group of friends to walk a million steps for Melanoma UK!;  Tina Manning, one of our Ambassadors and another stage 4 patient, upped her fundraising efforts and continued the walking theme and we can’t miss the opportunity to mention Tommy Leigh.  Tommy’s mum passed away when he was 5 years old and he had the crazy idea that he would run the equivalent of an ultra-marathon around Hyde Park.  He set his initial fundraising target at £550….. however, as of today, his fundraising page stands at over £6,000.  It seems we now have our own Captain Tom!!   

To everyone who did something in May, no matter how big or small, thank you.  As ever, we are grateful. 

So, as lockdown is eased and we look at getting back to normal, we still don’t know what ‘normal’ will look like in the future.  We have no idea when we will be allowed to put all our planned events back into the calendar so we just have to be patient and sit tight.

In the meantime, we will still be here, as always.

Gill Nuttall