Katie Taylor (15) was diagnosed with malignant melanoma aged just 13 when a mole on her leg became itchy.

Doctors removed the mole but last October they detected a lump in her groin and found that the cancer had returned in her lymph glands.

She underwent a course of chemotherapy but the treatment failed to halt the progress of the cancer and it spread throughout her body – including into her spine which consequently collapsed.

Katie, of Albert Street, Leabrooks, had the bottom half of her spine cemented to prevent further collapse but the damage has left her paralysed from the waist down and without any sensation from below her neck.

Mum Alison said: "She's absolutely amazing. She has to go through so much everyday and to remain awake she has to leave off some of the painkillers which means that she is in constant pain, but otherwise they knock her out completely."

Katie's doctors say she is the youngest sufferer of malignant melanoma they have treated and because she has never been sunburnt, her parents are at a loss as to how she has become so ill.

"She's never sunbathed and never been on a sunbed, but the cancer has still managed to attack her to this degree," said Alison.

"She has always been an outdoors person – we have horses and dogs so she has played out in the fields, but has always been in jeans or jodphurs.

"It's absolutely crazy. We want answers but there aren't any."

Now Katie, a pupil at Antony Gell School in Wirksworth, is hoping to complete a five-mile sponsored midnight walk in Somercotes in her wheelchair to raise money for the Myfanwy Townsend Melanoma Reseach fund.

Alison said: "We are trying to raise as much awareness for this as possible because unfortunately the incidence rate for melanoma is doubling every ten years. More people suffer from malignant melanoma than breast cancer."

She added: "On the whole Katie copes very well. Her attitude is that there are people worse off which is amazing."

The sponsored walk is on June 21 starting from St Thomas' Centre on Nottingham Road, Somercotes.

Sponsor forms and further information can be obtained from Susan Williams on (01773) 607549.


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