Telford mother's charity challenge after brain tumour treatment

After shielding for two years while undergoing brain tumour treatment, a mother is attempting to complete 10,000 steps a day in aid of charity.

Avid runner Keri Benting, from Telford, was diagnosed with a grade three anaplastic astrocytoma in October 2019.

She is taking on the February challenge for Brain Tumour Research after undergoing months of treatment.

Ms Benting, who also lost her mother and sister to cancer, said she wanted to do something to raise awareness.

The 45-year-old's symptoms began in June 2018 when she said she began to experience feelings of dread and hot flushes which doctors said could be due to the menopause.

A year later she began experiencing extreme headaches, which doctors put down to stress or a trapped nerve, before an eye test in September 2019 suggested she had an brain aneurysm.

She went to hospital where she collapsed, and scans found the 6cm (2.3in) tumour.

Ms Benting then underwent surgery which was able to take out 90% of the tumour, with the remainder wrapped around her motor neurone nerve - she was told removing it could have left her paralysed.

She then began radiotherapy treatment, but in February 2020 lost her mother, Brenda, who had been diagnosed with a tumour in her bile duct.

"Mum was in hospice care when my radiotherapy started," Ms Benting said.

"She was coming to the end of her life and she would get a bit confused, but she was always be able to count down my [rounds of] treatment."

Ms Benting began chemotherapy in March, just days before the first national lockdown and was ordered to shield as she was considered extremely vulnerable, due to her immune system being impaired.

It meant she spent almost two years shielding, but was able to do some of her work as a Tesco auditor from home and completed an HR qualification. She said her two dogs helped keep her "sane".

She also kept up her running and managed to complete a 5k (3.1mi) run each week during her treatment, and took part in a World Record attempt for the most participants in a virtual 5k at one time, which she said she did in her mother's honour.

Despite her illness, Ms Benting said her mother wrote letters to members of the family and told her to "never stop achieving" things.

In January 2021, the 45-year-old underwent surgery to remove two further "dots" from her brain, as well as more intense chemotherapy.

But she said she was now doing well and undergoing scans every three months on the tumour, which remains in her brain. She was also recently told there was no cancer present.

Ms Benting who also lost her sister Karen, 30, to Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000, said she wanted to undertake the steps challenge to raise funds for charity.

"When you tell people they always gasp when you say brain tumour," she said.

"My outlook has always been not 'why me' but 'try me'."

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