Lowri Pye

100k for Mum and so no more women have to fight 💗

On 5 February 2026, I lost my mum. I still don’t know how to write that sentence without it hurting.

My mum, Helen, wasn’t just my mum, she was my safe place, and one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. She fought breast cancer for seven years. Seven years of treatments, scans, hospital rooms, uncertainty, hope and fear, while still trying to life to the fullest as possible.

Throughout the month of October, I’ll be walking 100km for Mum in her memory to raise money for fighting against breast cancer. I’ll be fitting the walks around my normal working days, getting out with my dog Straya before work and again after work, slowly building up the kilometres throughout the month.

I know that, to some people, walking 100km might not seem like much. But for a daughter who is still trying to come to terms with the fact that her mum has died, getting up each morning and facing a world without her can feel like the hardest thing imaginable.

About Mum’s cancer story. Mum was first diagnosed in January 2019 at the age of 46 after noticing a small dimple on her breast. After a mastectomy, six months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, we truly believed we had reached the end of her cancer story. We were wrong.

In May 2022, we found out the cancer had spread to her bones, throughout her spine, ribs and even outside her skull. But Mum kept living.

She still worked at her carer as a Primary School teacher, dropping to part time hours. Mum teaching was the job she was born to do. She still travelled, went on holidays, laughed, made plans and enjoyed her life. Every three months we would hold our breath waiting for her CT results, hoping she was still “stable Mable”, the name she gave herself. Then, in December 2024, the cancer spread to her liver and sternum.

Thankfully, her new treatment worked, giving us more time. Time we will forever be grateful for. We had one last family holiday together in Thailand. We had absolutely no idea it would be our last.

In October 2025, the cancer spread to her pleural cavity, filling it with cancerous fluid and making it harder for her to breathe. She had two permanent drains fitted either side of her lungs, 500ml+ of liquid drained from her chest every day, attached to oxygen 24/7. There were hospital stays, more chemotherapy and, once again, losing her hair. Slowly, cruelly, cancer began taking Mum away from us.

It took away the job she loved.

It took away her independence.

It took away her strength.

It took away pieces of the woman she had always been.

And on 5 February 2026, it took her life.

Cancer didn’t care that she was my mum.

It didn’t care that my dad ADORED his wife.

It didn’t care that my grandmother and grandfather was losing their first and eldest daughter.

It didn’t care about the family who would be left behind to pick up the pieces. It just kept taking. And that is why I’m walking.

I’m walking for the woman I wish I could still call. For the mum who should still be here watching my life unfold. For the woman who deserved more time. I’m walking for every woman currently fighting this horrible disease, and for every family sitting beside a hospital bed, waiting for scan results, hoping for more time.

If you can donate, no matter how small, it would mean more to me than I can put into words. Every donation is helping towards a future where breast cancer doesn’t get to take another mum, daughter, wife, sister or friend.

100km for Mum

100km for Helen.

Every step for her. ❤️