Grade 10 student Liam Prime has taken up a worthy cause to support his teacher Mrs Kemp, who is fighting cancer; he hopes to raise funds to help her in her battle.
East London, South Africa (10 July 2023) – Liam Prime of Stirling High School, is busy with his 6th week of cycling and running to raise funds for his teacher Mrs Kemp, who is fighting cancer. He started his challenge on the 1st of June 2023 and has been pushing himself every week, hoping to go until the 31st of July 2023.
Each week, Liam records all the cycling and running he does, in the hope of raising funds to support Mrs Kemp, his teacher. He has already raised R3550.00 by running 117.4kms and cycling 693.10kms. Liam even shaved his hair off and some of his swimming team followed suit – just inspiring!
During his 5th week, he faced a major challenge at a cycling event, he took a serious fall and broke his collar bone. It has been ruled that he will no longer be able to run or cycle outdoors so he plans to use his family’s indoor exercise bike to continue his cycling at home and his mom Vanessa will be doing his running portions, so they can continue to support Mrs Kemp and raise much-needed funds.
“Liam today (07 July) was participating at the SA Youth Cycle Champs. Liam unfortunately had an accident and walked away with a broken collar bone and chipped radius. One of the plenty emotions was that of how to continue in raising funds. Liam won’t be able to cycle outdoors, run or swim for several weeks.
Liam however will cycle indoors on his trainer for the next 4 weeks utilizing one hand for changing gears as arm is in a sling. Liam will continue cyclying whilst mom (me) will run daily for Liam to continue Liams fundraising endeavor for Mrs Kemp. I will record my daily running and post with Liams cycling every week still. Mrs Kemp is currently undergoing another round of chemo”
Mrs Kemp’s Cancer Battle
Vanessa, Liam’s mom, shared Mrs Kemp’s back story on Facebook. She underwent treatment in 2022 and after a gruelling fight, was able to return to teaching at the start of the 2023 school year. Mrs Kemp went for a routine checkup in March and sadly it indicated that her cancer had spread to other parts of her body.
The discovery of these cancerous spots has pushed Liam and the East London community to rally and support Mrs Kemp through this next phase of her treatment.
Mrs Kemp is having to travel to Cape Town for treatment so funds raised by Liam are going towards whatever Mrs Kemp needs during this treatment.
“We had all hoped that 2023 would finally be Mrs Kemp year for her life to return to normal. After the physical and emotional trauma of the aggressive medical treatments she received in 2022 Mrs Kemp still managed to get herself back to school in January in a limited capacity and had her hopes of having a stoma reversal before the end of this year.
Sadly, toward the end of March, during routine follow up scans to monitor the success of last year’s treatments, cancerous spots were identified on her liver and in the soft tissue of her pelvis. Her medical team at the local government hospital suggested more chemotherapy but also sent her case to the oncology department at Groote Schuur in Cape Town. The surgeons in Cape Town recommended an immediate resection of her liver and additional chemotherapy thereafter. Due to the aggressive nature of the cancer, she was given a surgery date for the following week and had to pack her bags and get on a plane alone to brave yet another complicated surgery.
Mrs Kemp had her gall bladder, about 70% of her liver, as well as another tumour on her stomach/pelvis area removed during the surgery on Wednesday (26th April). Mrs Kemp has once again shown her warrior spirit and her determination to keep fighting this cancer to have more time with her beautiful children, amazing family, and friends.
From here there is so much unknown at this stage but we do know there will be added stress as she tries to achieve regular ongoing trips to Cape Town to receive chemotherapy for the most part of this year, a trip to get an opinion from a Richards Bay specialist might be on the cards, a PET scan, follow up checks and appointments, all the medical and medicine costs, unsure of when she will be able to return to work, that we yet again find ourselves calling on all her caring friends and family and the East London Community to support in consider sponsoring Liam as he runs and cycle in lieu of a sponsor or donation which will all be handed over to Mrs Kemp.”
Vanessa is keeping everyone updated on Liam’s progress so you can follow along here to see how much they manage to raise each week. You can also find out how to donate towards the fund here.
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