‘I thought my symptoms were post-London Marathon strain – five months later I got my blood cancer diagnosis at 73’

A 75-year-old London woman diagnosed with blood cancer has said completing the London Marathon with her daughter would be a “dream come true” after her previous attempt in 2023, prior to her diagnosis, was thwarted.

Within a month after Pritpal Kaur, a sales assistant at Harrods, first attempted the London Marathon with her 45-year-old daughter Minreet Kaur, a freelance journalist, she said she started experiencing “really bad back pain” and fatigue that she thought was linked to the marathon, which she had to pull out of because of severe cramping.

By September 2023, after what Minreet described as “five months of hell” in going “back and forth” to doctors, Pritpal said she was “shocked” to be diagnosed with myeloma, which is a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.

According to the NHS, the main symptoms can include bone pain – including back, hips, shoulders or ribs – fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle weakness, headaches and losing weight.

Pritpal told PA Real Life: “When we were told I had myeloma, I just started crying. I didn’t know what to do and I was just so shocked.”

Pritpal said she’s been running since her 30s after she had her child, Minreet, and has stayed active her “whole life” by going to the gym and entering running and rowing competitions.

She decided to enter the London Marathon in 2023 with Minreet and her husband, Rajinder, and said she was devastated that her “legs froze up” at mile 17 and she couldn’t complete it.

In the immediate aftermath, Pritpal said she experienced muscle aches and pain in her ribs, but they persisted for a month.

“I thought my symptoms were from the marathon,” she said. “I had really bad back pain, I had no energy, I was sleeping all the time.

“I said to myself, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ I was always full of energy,” she added.

Pritpal went to the doctor in May, where she said she was prescribed painkillers because doctors thought it was “old age” and they took general blood tests, which came back normal.

By June, Minreet said the painkillers weren’t working and Pritpal was also now experiencing shortness of breath, so she took her mother to A&E at West Middlesex University Hospital, where doctors did more tests and said they couldn’t find anything.

Pritpal said she had a scan that found a moderate blockage in her chest, which doctors said was likely angina – a feeling of pain or tightness, usually in the chest, that can be a sign of a heart problem – so she was prescribed medication.

Once out of hospital and shortly after starting the medication, Pritpal said: “I was serving a customer at work and I suddenly started experiencing cramps on the left side of my body. I said to my manager, ‘I need to sit down because I think I’m going to fall down’.”

As a result of this incident, Minreet said she encouraged her mother to stop the medication and she rang the doctors who prescribed the medication, who said she needed to be on it for “a month”.

Minreet said she responded: “So you want my mum to try that medication for a month when it might not even be that? And you want her to go through all of the side effects?”

Unhappy with the outcome of the conversation, Minreet said she filed a complaint to the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) about concerns over her mother’s treatment, which is when a senior cardiologist got back to her and encouraged her to bring Pritpal back in for further investigations.

Minreet added: “When I pushed and pushed and went to PALS and put a complaint in, it was from the complaint that they then said, ‘Come in for some further tests’.”

By September, Pritpal said she had a scan to measure her bone mineral density, a blood test that found abnormal levels of paraproteins, and a bone marrow test to confirm her myeloma diagnosis, aged 73.

Minreet described the moment she and Pritpal were called into the doctor’s office to receive the news: “You’re sitting in this small room with two little chairs and white walls. Then the doctor said, ‘We’ve got the bone marrow test back, it confirms that you’ve got blood cancer, and you need to start treatment straight away’.

“It was all going over my head. We just couldn’t believe what we heard,” Minreet said.

After taking a week for the “shock” to settle and to think about what to do, Pritpal said she started chemotherapy and “a lot of medication” to try to get her bones stronger.

“It was the worst time of our lives,” Minreet said. “She was spending loads of time sleeping and not eating. It was just horrible.”

After six months, Pritpal said the paraproteins in her blood dropped and she was in remission by March 2024, but doctors said she would need to keep taking monthly infusions for the rest of her life.

To raise money for Blood Cancer UK, Minreet and her father Rajinder ran the London Marathon in April 2024. Then later that year, Minreet said she was inspired by her mother’s story and set up a group called Asian Women Run, which is a running group in west London to encourage “more representation” in the sport and to “help Asian women get active”.

Since then, Pritpal said she felt well enough to join in on some group park runs and build back her strength, to the point where she wrote a list of intentions at the start of this year and put “do the London Marathon once in my lifetime” at the top of the list.

In February, Minreet said a few spots in the marathon were allocated to her running group so she asked her mother if she wanted to do it, knowing it was a “dream” of Pritpal’s to do what she didn’t manage to complete in 2023.

Pritpal jumped at the opportunity and said the mother-daughter pair has been training ever since, including utilising a technique known as “jeffing”, which involves intermittent running and walking.

They’ve done multiple 10Ks and 15Ks together, as well as a hike in Portugal this month and a 10K on Mother’s Day.

On the day of the London Marathon on Sunday April 26, they plan to wear their matching “Asian Women Run” tees, as well as matching shoes and leggings.

On how it would feel to cross the finish line, Pritpal said: “It would be a dream come true.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted to do so I’d be over the moon. And if I’ve got the energy, I’m definitely going to sprint over the finish line” she said.

Minreet added: “It’d be amazing. A mother and daughter thing. I think it’d be something to remember for life and hopefully it encourages so many other people like us to know that you can do it too.”

A spokesperson for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “While we do not comment on the care or treatment of individual patients, the Trust is committed to providing safe, high quality care and follows robust clinical and governance processes to ensure concerns are reviewed and used to improve our services.”

To donate to their London Marathon fundraiser, visit their GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/from-myeloma-to-london-marathon-2026-together-again.