Cancer battle takes mum to new heights

Mar 10 2008 by Katie Norman, South Wales Echo

DAREDEVIL postie Pauline Eastment delivers more than just letters.

From adventures on Everest and the Great Wall of China to wearing shorts to do her round for a whole year, she has delivered more than £22,000 for cancer charities.

But the 51-year-old mum’s fundraising mission is even more of an amazing feat – since it was inspired by her own fight against breast cancer.

And much of what she has achieved is thanks to the support of residents on her round who sponsor her generously.

Pauline was diagnosed in 1999 when her son Thomas, now 17, was aged just eight.

“It was absolutely terrible,” she said.

“Something like that just hits you for six. It was depressing but I soon pulled myself together. It’s a case of having to. But even after the operation, I spent months getting over it psychologically.”

Surgeons removed a lump from Pauline’s breast and the lymph nodes from under her arm.

She then underwent 25 radiography sessions and took the breast cancer treatment drug Tamoxifen for five years.

She said: “My arm is still numb even after nine years. They’ve taken out the majority of the lymph nodes so I have to be careful not to get an infection.”

But instead of dwelling on what she has endured, Pauline has taken on a series of incredible adventures to raise cash for other sufferers.

She first took on a fundraising challenge when she made a parachute jump for Barnardo’s in 1989.

But it wasn’t until 2000, a year after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, that she began her fundraising mission for cancer charities.

She did the Playtex Moonwalk, a sponsored night walk in London by bra-bearing women, and raised £1,450.

She says it took her mind off the ordeal of the diagnosis and treatment.

She followed it with the London Marathon just a year later before attempting a tandem skydive, Cardiff’s Race For Life and a mammoth trek along the Great Wall of China.

Last year she collected more than £2,000 in sponsorship for Cancer Research Wales for wearing her shorts to work throughout the winter.

“I chose Cancer Research Wales as one of my charities because if we can put the research in then hopefully things will get better in terms of treatment, and maybe one day there will be a cure,” she said.

Much of the cash Pauline has racked up has come from posting polite requests for sponsorship along with the letters on her delivery round in St Athan and leaving collection boxes in village shops.

“The comments I had were brilliant,” said Pauline, of Higher End, St Athan.

“One woman came out and said ‘my mother swears by goose grease’. She actually gave me a tub to rub on my legs.

“I tried it out but I had dogs rubbing at me and all sorts.”

Pauline has just returned from her latest mission, trekking to Everest base camp in Nepal. She was one of only three team members who climbed the 5,550m Mount Kalapata, which looks out over Everest.

She said: “For the last three days we didn’t change out of the clothes we slept in because it was too cold to strip off.

“It was very basic. We all knew we wouldn’t have facilities so we took wet wipes but the wet wipes were frozen.”

Since her breast cancer fight, Pauline said she tries not think about her ordeal fighting the disease.

She still finds it difficult to directly comfort people who going through a similar experience.

“The fundraising gives me something to focus on,” she said.

“I know I do all these things, but when it comes to cancer itself, I shy away from it. I can’t cope with that.

“It upsets me too much and brings it all back to me.

“By doing these things I feel I can give something in a different way.

“It’s a personal challenge for me but I feel I’m also doing good by raising money and awareness.”

Thanks to her efforts, Pauline has been nominated for the Royal Mail’s annual Chairman’s Achievement Award in the fundraising category.

Her husband Martin, 55, a former Dara employee who now works as a postman in Llantwit Major, is immensely proud.

“I have all the confidence and faith in Pauline when she does these challenges,” he said.

“Not only does she put the effort into training for them but I sometimes marvel at the personal touch she applies to it as well.

“Seeing as all the money raised is normally small amounts from individuals in the local area, you can imagine how much work it entails.

“Quite often you hear of people doing things for charity where they raise a few hundred pounds but with Pauline it always seems to be thousands. From £2,000 to approximately £22,500 to be precise.

“As her husband, I love and commend her for it.”

Our view: See Page 24.

katie.norman@mediawales.co.uk