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An 13-year-old boy is taking on the KM Big Bike Ride to help his mum pay for her £1,000 a month alternative cancer treatment.
Isaac Pavitt from Northbourne near Deal is all set for his 50k challenge at Betteshanger Country Park on Sunday.
The money he will raise will go towards helping his mum Charlene Fursland fight her inoperable stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.
The single mum of three was first diagnosed in 2014 but overcame the disease with a lumpectomy and four weeks worth of radiotherapy.
When it returned in April 2019, she declined chemotherapy treatment in exchange for an alternative, private option; working with an American specialist with 40 years experience, Dr Dana Flavin.
Taking up to 150 pills a day, the treatment is a combination of off label drugs such as metformin, supplements, diet and lifestyle aimed at "blocking all pathways".
But the treatment which she has recieved monthly since December 2019 comes at a cost of £1,000 a month.
'Now it's about grit and determination to overcome cancer again'
She said: "As a single mother, to get the all clear was relief like no other.
"Now it's about grit and determination to overcome cancer again. There's not a doubt in my mind that I will get better."
Asked why she declined the NHS pathway, she said: "I feel like I had years of doctors not listening to me. They treated me like they knew my body better than I do.
"With chemotherapy, I'd be ill. With this, everything is going in the right direction.
"I get my blood analysed and compared to my last one, they're brilliant.
"There's no way on this earth I'm going to leave my kids so it's worth the investment in my time and energy, but finding the money is hard."
She says she is extremely proud of her son, a pupil at Dover Grammar School for Boys, for taking on the challenge, which was an idea he came up with with his grandfather, Tony Fursland.
He said: "It's humbling. I'm so proud of him.
"He has asthma, so it's taking him out of his comfort zone but he's excited. He’s been practising hard."
She says those who sponsor him will be giving her the "gift of life".
"It's paying for my children to have their mum around and to give them the life they need," she said.
Isaac is half way to his £1,000 target. To sponsor him, click here .
