I'm taking on the Edinburgh marathon in memory of my stepfather who died of incurable blood cancer

My stepdad Ronnie died suddenly from myeloma in April last year, so I decided at his funeral to do something to raise money for, and awareness of, the incurable blood cancer. He had only had two doses of chemotherapy when he died unexpectedly.

It was two weeks from admission to hospital until he died. He was fit and healthy, he had no underlying health conditions. It was a complete shock to us all. He ended up having two lots of chemo whilst very unwell with pneumonia and then two days after the second dose, he died. He pretty much went into multi-organ failure. It’s shocking, completely shocking.

Beth Hunt will run the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday, May 18, in memory of her stepfather Ronnie Haston. | Beth Hunt

Ronnie was always a strong presence in our family. He was a gentle man. He was always someone you could lean on. He’d never judge, he’d always support you and just show up. I’d had him in my life since I was 19. You don’t realise the impact someone had until you lose them.

Being a nurse as well I realise that this condition is not well-known, so I really want to spread the word. The stats from the Myeloma UK charity show that people experience significant delays in getting diagnosed and a delayed diagnosis often leads to a worse prognosis, and often gets missed until people are very unwell.

We are so lucky we have the NHS. Prevention is better than cure, don’t wait. Time is short. Ronnie was 68 and he didn’t even get to enjoy one day of retirement.

We didn’t actually use the charity when Ronnie passed away, it all happened so quickly. There are lots of cancer charities, and they are all amazing, but because he died of myeloma I thought it was very important to help Myeloma UK.

Beth's mum Anne Haston pictured with Ronnie, who passed away tragically in April, 2023, at the age of 68. | Beth Hunt

They are based in Edinburgh and are doing important research, they are trying to help GPs to make a quicker diagnosis of this condition, and that would have helped Ronnie. He had gone to the GP two weeks before his death and they didn’t pick it up.

It’s not people’s fault, it’s the system’s fault. The catalogue of errors, the wait, we kept saying “he needs a blood test”, but he couldn’t get a blood test for two weeks. In this day and age how is that acceptable? If somebody is unwell, you need the blood test now. Even in hospital, it was all too little too late.

The big thing for me is educating GPs. The symptoms of myeloma are sometimes non-descript and not obvious, you could put them down to muscle ache and being tired, but these should be red flags for a GP, especially in someone with no underlying conditions and who has never been to a GP apart from with cellulitis from mosquito bites. If Ronnie hadn’t been so unwell by the time he got into hospital, he would have been in a better position to fight it.

If I can do anything to help other families then I want to do it. Myeloma UK’s support is totally invaluable and had Ronnie been able to live longer it would have been very useful to us. Life will never be the same without him. It is so cliche, but the reality is life is short and so precious.

It’s my first marathon, but when I decide to do something, I do it. I know I can do at least half but I’ll probably have to push through the last six miles. I think of Ronnie and my mum when I run, the last year without him has been awful for her. If she can wake up without him and can put one foot in front of the other then I can take it one step at a time too.

Beth at the start of the half marathon in Glasgow, and at the finish with her mum Anne Haston and her sons Daniel and Sam. | Beth Hunt

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I did a 10 mile run about eight years ago, but I wasn’t a runner growing up and I’m not now, what with having a young family. So I have been training hard since January, putting the miles in, but it has been difficult with family life fitting in training runs. I tend to run at night when my husband’s here and the children are sleeping.

It’s about the finish line, not the finish time. I had to do a half marathon first to build up to this so I did the Glasgow one in October to prove to myself that I could eventually run a full marathon. That was six months to the day that Ronnie died, so it was a special and quite emotional day running in Glasgow.

I have done a 20 mile run in training so I’m in a good place. I just want to raise as much money as possible for Myeloma UK, hopefully over £2,000, my JustGiving page is sitting at £1,500 just now so it’s looking good.

To support Beth go to https://www.justgiving.com/page/beths-miles-for-myeloma. For more information about myeloma or to get in touch with Myeloma UK go to www.myeloma.org.uk. Myeloma UK runs a free Infoline on 0800 980 3332.