Summary
A man whose wife died of a rare cancer aged 46 has said he is completing a series of challenges to raise money for the “amazing” hospice which cared for her towards the end of her life.
Details
Matt Miles, 46, a police officer living in Cheltenham, said the only symptom his wife, Katy Miles, had before her low-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (LGSOC) diagnosis – which the LGSOC Initiative says accounts for only 2% to 5% of ovarian cancers – was bladder control issues during a CrossFit class in 2016, when she was 37.
Katy underwent treatment and was initially given the all-clear, but by 2024 she found out her cancer had spread and she went into end-of-life care provided by the charity Sue Ryder. Now, Matt is honouring his wife, who was also a police officer, by using her police collar number – 1481 – to complete challenges such as a 1,481-mile row and 1,481 burpees, as well as hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
He will end the year-long fundraising drive by running the London Marathon this Sunday, April 26. Matt told PA Real Life: “It was dramatically unfair. To have this disease is one thing, but to have a rare disease – for someone of her age and fitness level – there was no rhyme or reason for it.
Cancer doesn’t discriminate. If it gets you, it gets you.” Matt and Katy first met in 2009 at work and started a relationship soon after, bonding over their common interest in sport, specifically rugby and skiing. It was during a ski trip together in France in February 2012 that Matt proposed to Katy, surprising her by skiing up to her in a tuxedo.
The pair married on May 10, 2013. Matt said: “I’m quite shy and introverted. She was very extroverted, so she was very good at filling the gaps.
“She had a very infectious laugh and a huge, beaming smile. You’d never hear a bad word said about her.” Matt said Katy was always very fit and healthy and she took “pride in her appearance”, so she “threw herself full throttle” into CrossFit. It was during one particular class in 2016 that Katy was skipping and she felt that she needed to use the toilet.
Off the back of this incident, Katy saw her GP, who referred her for a scan that showed an abnormality. Doctors initially thought Katy had an ovarian cyst, and Matt said he remembers his wife being reassured at the time that “it’s not cancerous, don’t worry”. The lump was biopsied and Katy was called into a medical Centre in Cheltenham for the results on December 16, 2016.