A mum with incurable breast cancer who fronted a campaign calling on the Scottish Government not to “forget” the needs of patients during the pandemic, put her health worries aside yesterday to walk down the aisle.
Karen Hilton, 48, married her partner of 10 years, Alistair Henderson, 57, surrounded by family in the garden of their home.
Scores of the couple’s friends gathered in their street to watch the ceremony via a live link without breaching social gathering guidelines.
And Karen, who was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in 2018, said the intimate celebration was one of the best days of her life.
Karen, of Dalkeith, Midlothian, said: “We had initially planned to marry in April, then postponed the ceremony until June, before having to put it off again as a result of coronavirus restrictions.
“In the end, we decided to have the ceremony in a marquee in our garden, with my son Tristan as both Alistair’s best man and our ring bearer.
“We knew it would be an emotional day because we know what my prognosis is. But I’m a positive person and my treatment is working at the moment.
“The wedding has been such a wonderful, happy distraction to everything else that is going on.”
Karen was diagnosed with triple-negative primary breast cancer with a faulty BRCA1 gene in May 2016, followed by another
primary breast cancer in August 2017.
She was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in September 2018.
In May this year, she fronted a Breast Cancer Now campaign calling for the “often forgotten” needs of patients with incurable breast cancer to be recognised.
The NHS in Scotland suspended some cancer
services, including routine mammograms, amid fears they could leave the patient at risk of contracting Covid-19.
