10-mile city trek in aid of the cancer charity, you might need refuelling at the end. Thank goodness, then for Maz Carruthers, who will be on hand to give walkers a wee 'Boost' when they finish. The 34-year-old from Govanhill, who has been fighting ovarian cancer for two years, plans to open Boost, an organic juice and snack bar near Maggie's Gartnavel. She'll be at the finish line in the centre on Friday handing out soup, sandwich and smoothie tasters to the hikers. Here, she tells ANN FOTHERINGHAM why she believes nutrition has such a key role in battling cancer.
MAZ Carruthers was on holiday in Alaska when she was rushed into hospital with stomach pain.
"They opened me up and found a box of frogs," she smiles.
"A tumour the size of a large grapefruit, to be exact. It was crazy. I'd had pain before but I'd always been told I was too young to have cancer.
"So when doctors told me that I had ovarian cancer I laughed because I honestly thought they were joking."
The tumour was wrapped around Maz's womb and ovaries, and doctors told her the cancer was stage four, aggressive and had spread to multiple sites.
"It was a huge shock," she says.
"But there is nothing you can do – you have to accept what's happening to you."
Surgeons in Alaska removed Maz's womb, ovaries and parts of her abdomen, and she began a gruelling course of chemotherapy.
"The waiting in between operations was the worst bit for me, knowing all the time that you have this cancer bubbling away inside of you," she says.
"I wanted everything to happen yesterday – I'm really impatient. I just wanted to get on with the operation."
Unfortunately, Maz had an allergic reaction to the treatment.
"I nearly died," she says. "They had to get the crash team in. I was in really bad shape afterwards.
"The doctors didn't make any secret of how ill I was and all my focus was on simply staying alive."
Four and a half weeks later, after starting treatment with a different type of chemo, Maz was finally allowed home to Scotland.
She says: "I'd been working abroad in Laos as a training and human resources consultant, so I hadn't lived in Scotland for eight years.
"I had nothing, apart from incredible support from my family and friends, so it was a struggle sorting everything out like finding a flat and even registering with a GP given how sick I was.
"And then I found Maggie's, and it was like a safe haven, somewhere really lovely I could just sit and talk to people about my diagnosis, knowing they understood."
Maz goes on: "Every-one at Maggie's is incredibly warm, and generous. You feel welcome from the moment you walk in and you can have space if you want it or you can speak to someone about your fears and what you are feeling.
"I don't know what I would do without Maggie's."
In February last year, Maz finished her first course of treatment and was told her cancer was in remission. But just eight months later, it returned.
Maz said: "I knew I was sick, because I had started to feel rubbish again. But when I was told the cancer was back I was devastated."
Tests revealed she had four inoperable tumours in her abdomen and she started a second round of chemotherapy.
Maz responded brilliantly to the treatment, which finished in April this year, and the tumours vanished.
Unfortunately, doctors have told her that because her cancer is genetic, it will return in the future.
"It is not great to know it will come back or that they can't cure me, but at least I know it is treatable," says Maz.
"The trick is to keep my body strong enough to cope with the treatments and that's where my idea for Boost comes in."
Maz wants to open an organic juice and snack bar in, or near, the Beatson Cancer Centre in Glasgow's Gartnavel Hospital in order to offer those getting treatment for cancer the option of healthier food choices and access to information on nutrition.
The 34-year-old also intends Boost to be a social enterprise project which will help those returning to work after taking a break because of cancer.
Maz explains: "When you get cancer you feel as if everything is out of your control, but what you eat and drink is one thing you can still manage.
"It makes sense to me to give your body all the help it can get when it is dealing with cancer and having organic, healthy choices is one way of doing that."
She adds: "Chemotherapy affects people in different ways – it changes your tastebuds, destroys your appetite, gives you diarrhoea and vomiting and it's easy to get disheartened, to stop enjoying food."
She adds: "But if you can't eat, you have no fuel. If you have no fuel, you can't fight. And you need to fight this disease. I intend to keep fighting it with everything I have."
