Globetrotting Pam speaks of her long battle with cancer

The globetrotting pensioner has visited no fewer than 20 dream destinations since she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma four years ago.

Retired civil servant Pam, from Bexhill-on-Sea, said: “Cancer gave me the kick up the backside I needed. You can either go home, get into bed, curl up and wait to die, or you can fight it.

“I decided to fight it, and it’s given me a new lease of life. I don’t know how long I’ve got but I’m determined to enjoy it”.

She had only been abroad once in her life – to the Italian resort of Cattolica as a 19-year-old in 1967 – before she was diagnosed in 2008.

But since 2009 she has splashed out on expensive holidays to the Caribbean – a two-week cruise taking in 11 countries including Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and Trinidad – the French Riviera resorts of Cannes, Nice, Monaco and Monte Carlo, Rome, the Italian lakes of Como and Garda and Tossa de Mar on Spain’s Costa Brava.

Now she’s busy lining up trips to Peru and China.

“I’ve got some decent pensions coming in and I’m damned if I’m leaving my money behind me,” she said.

Pam says she is eternally grateful for the treatment she received and is passionate about raising awareness about cancer and furthering research by Cancer Research UK.

She has given cash to Cancer Research – in those days it was the Imperial Cancer Fund – for an incredible 47 years since leaving school in 1965. Pam was first spurred on to donate after losing her gran May to cervical cancer at 73 and granddad Ernest to lung cancer at 79.

She said: “I’m not sure how much I’ve given over the years. My first pay packet was only £5 11 shillings so then it was only a few pennies per week. But it must be a tidy sum over the years.”

Now Pam wants women to join her in Cancer Research UK’s 5k Race for Life in Hastings on Sunday July 15. This will be her fourth year of taking part and she hopes to push her Race for Life total to more than £1,000.

Pam was only two days into her early retirement in May 2008 when she realised something was wrong and went to the doctor with a bloated stomach.

“I looked six months pregnant so I knew I had something nasty inside me,” she said.

Doctors initially thought she had a blocked intestine, and then they feared ovarian cancer before a barrage of tests confirmed the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis.

She was treated with eight sessions of chemotherapy and given an 80 per cent chance of survival - and by February 2009 was in remission.

But her joy turned to despair when it came back in June 2010 and Pam underwent more gruelling treatment including a stem-cell harvest.

Now she has been in remission for 14 months and is taking life one day at a time.

She moved down to Bexhill-on-Sea from her native Yorkshire in 2006 to help brother Andrew, 55, look after their disabled mother Ivy, 94, who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

Cancer Research UK’s Race For Life in partnership with Tesco is a women-only series of events, which raises millions of pounds every year for life-saving research into 200 types of cancer – helping men, women and children survive.

Pam urged women: “You don’t have to be a good runner to take part. I just walk round – the important thing is to get involved and help raise money for Cancer Research UK.”

Race for Life is non-competitive. Women can choose whether to walk, jog or run a 5k, or in some venues, a 10k route. Most are able to walk 5k in an hour and all women are welcome, walking solo or as part of a group.

To join Sussex versus cancer, enter Race for Life at www.raceforlife.org or call 0871 641 1111

PICTURED: Pam Angel with friend Nikki Resalsingh at last year’s Race For Life