Mum thought she wouldn’t see kids grow up after sore throat symptom

A mother-of-two who feared she wouldn’t live to see her children grow up after a sore throat led to an incurable blood cancer diagnosis has expressed feeling “lucky” to be alive 16 years later. Deb Gascoyne, 50, from Hagley, West Midlands, revealed that a precautionary blood test detected her smouldering myeloma – an early stage of the blood cancer – in July 2009, aged 34, when she visited her GP for a sore throat.

Deb, who resides with her 50-year-old husband Nick and their two children, Rebecca, now 21, and Sam, 19, said the nurse’s last-minute decision to take bloods that day resulted in an early diagnosis and may have even saved her life. Despite experiencing two relapses over the years, she has been able to celebrate many significant milestones and has dedicated herself to fundraising, with the goal of reaching £250,000 to support research into treatments and a cure.

To date, she has raised £248,100 for the charity Myeloma UK – although this figure is likely to be higher as the system is only updated monthly – and she is gearing up for her final fundraising challenge in May, a cycle ride from London to Paris, to reach her target. While Deb has grappled with survivor’s guilt and even felt like a “fraud” for outliving the typical prognosis, she said she feels “lucky that (she’s) had 16 years” and wants to offer “hope” to others.

“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,” Deb told PA Real Life. “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.”

Before receiving her diagnosis in 2009, Deb was a busy mother-of-two working in Human Resources (HR) – and with her children aged two and four at the time, she was prepared to “kickstart (her) family”. However, everything shifted when she began suffering from a relentless sore throat.

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

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

Deb revealed this snap decision to take blood tests that day resulted in an “early diagnosis that (she) might not have had otherwise”. Following additional testing, including scans and a bone marrow biopsy, it was confirmed in July 2009 that Deb had smouldering myeloma – an early stage of the blood cancer – aged 34.

Left “totally shellshocked”, as doctors initially told her she was “too young” to be diagnosed with the condition, she began conducting her own research and discovered 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.”

Approximately a year later, Deb’s myeloma advanced to active cancer and she was enrolled in the Myeloma XI trial in 2010, which involved chemotherapy. However, during that period, Deb explained she immersed herself in fundraising as she “needed to take control of something”, and first completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks with her family and friends.

She admitted feeling “morbid” at times, playing melancholy songs and even selecting her funeral playlist, but when she connected with other patients through Myeloma UK’s support network, this helped shift her outlook. “There were two women in particular who, sadly, aren’t with us anymore,” Deb recalled.

“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.”

Following her first stem cell transplant in July 2011, Deb was placed on maintenance chemotherapy, which kept her in “partial remission” for eight years. Despite the “fear in the back of (her) head” about relapsing, she remained committed to fundraising, organising events including a “glitz and glamour ball” that raised more than £30,000.

Discussing her fundraising efforts, Deb explained: “I then did 40 challenges before I was 40, including reading 40 books, doing a pub crawl around 40 pubs in 40 hours and eating 40 Brussels sprouts in four minutes. Then I did £50,000 before I was 50, but in the middle, I did other things like a food and wine tasting event, which raised about £11,000 and silent discos and auctions.”

Myeloma UK states that the condition typically follows a relapsing-remitting pattern, whereby successful treatment can achieve remission, though the disease is likely to return. Deb experienced her first relapse in 2019, undergoing her second stem cell transplant in September 2020, before suffering another relapse in November 2024.

She began a new maintenance treatment in December 2024, which she continues to receive, and whilst she has experienced some “blips” and hospital admissions throughout, she remains committed to fundraising. She is currently preparing for her second London to Paris cycling challenge in May, where she will be accompanied by family, her consultant, two of her clinical research nurses, the wife of a patient who recently passed away and other patients and friends. During this period, she also hopes to step back from work to savour 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. “I think we would like to see a bit of Europe, and for Nick’s 50th birthday, we’ve got a few gifts of meals out or afternoon tea. It will be nice to have time as well to support the kids without trying to split time between work and treatment, so we can make the priorities the right ones.”

Deb said she has had considerable time to “reflect” since her diagnosis, and she frequently wonders what might have occurred if that blood test had not been carried out. However, as she approaches 17 years since her diagnosis in July, she feels “grateful” as she did not believe she would “have this much time”.

She wants to continue raising awareness of myeloma and to encourage others to “listen to (their) body and be their own advocate”. “The whole journey with myeloma has been a rollercoaster for everyone, but what’s nice is there is a community out there… and they help you remember that you’re not alone,” she expressed.

“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 learn more or to contribute, visit Deb’s most recent fundraising page at ride.myeloma.org.uk/deb-gascoyne or check out Myeloma UK’s website at www.myeloma.org.uk.