'My mum ignored a persistent cough... a year later she was dead'
23.12.2023 - 17:55
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A public health chief who lost her mum to a devastating condition just two months after she was diagnosed has shared what she wants every family to know about the illness.
Rebecca Fletcher, who is the Public Health Director for Oldham, lost her mum Lesley Fletcher to lung cancer. Rebecca, who was brought up in Sandbach in Cheshire, recalls her mum always smoking from her being a youngster in the 1970s.
In 2009, Mum-of-two Lesley was struggling with depression and mental health issues and hadn’t paid attention to a persistent cough. But in October of that year, Lesley was diagnosed with lung cancer. The disease was already so advanced that she was unable to start treatment.
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She was given pain relief and died the day after Boxing Day aged 63 – just two months after being diagnosed, at Wythenshawe Hospital. The 47-year-old said: “It was devastating to lose my mum to lung cancer. Particularly as she died so quickly after being diagnosed."
Rebecca’s dad, Ian Fletcher, had stopped smoking a few years before Lesley’s diagnosis. He and Rebecca’s older sister, Victoria, now live in Dorset, while Rebecca lives in Salford with her partner Mike.
Now, Rebecca is backing Cancer Research UK’s ambitious cancer plan for how the next UK government could help avoid around 2,300 cancer deaths a year in the north west by 2040 – and prevent more people like Lesley losing their life to cancer.
Ahead of the next general election, Cancer Research UK has published 'longer, better lives: a manifesto for cancer research and care' that