In the words of Rob's brother Chris:

My brother Rob Metcalfe was diagnosed with Pleural Synovial Sarcoma in October 2018 at 29 years old.

Soft tissue sarcomas are rare. They represent less than 1% of all malignant tumors. Synovial sarcoma is even more uncommon. It occurs in only 1 to 3 people per million.

On the 30th January 2019 Rob had surgery to remove the tumour from the soft tissue of his left lung. Unfortunately, the tumour grew back and within 5 weeks of the surgery the tumour spread around his lungs, heart and windpipe.

On the 25th March 2019 we were given the worst news that Rob's Sarcoma was now a stage 4 terminal cancer and due to the rate the tumour had spread since his surgery it was now beyond curable.

On the 24th February 2022 surrounded by his family Rob passed away peacefully at home after fighting the hardest and bravest battle with Synovial Sarcoma. Rob leaves behind his only son Caleb who was 4 years old at the time of Robs death.

I've been thinking long and hard for ways to raise money and awareness for Sarcoma UK and help highlight all the tremendous work they do to help fight this rare form of cancer.

Rob grew up in Skipton and lived his final years of his life in Lothersdale with his 4 year old son Caleb, Rob loved walking in the local hills and found this to be a great way of coming to terms with his diagnosis and the effects this had on himself, Caleb, and the rest of our family and his friends.

Rob started documenting his journey on social media and his blunt and bruta honesty of living with incurable cancer soon gained Rob a large number of followers from all over the world. The way Rob documented his journey raised so much awareness of Sarcoma as a form of cancer and this culminated in Rob being filmed as part of a documentary called "Making sense of Cancer" with Hannah Fry for the BBC. This aired in June 2022 and has since won an award for the topics it covered as a 1 off documentary.

After Rob was diagnosed with terminal cancer we enjoyed walking up some of our local hills including Pendle Hill, Pen-Y-Ghent, his beloved Embsay Crag several times and the last peak we climbed together was Ben Nevis in October 2020, I really want to help make a difference and by keeping the walking theme going we are continuing to take on walking challenges in Robs memory and to raise vital funds for Sarcoma UK.

So far the fundraising challenges we have completed are:

Fundraising night held at the Black Horse pub, Grassington - June 2019

National 3 peaks in 24 hours - September 2019

Yorkshire 3 peaks in 8 hours - July 2020

Lake District skydive from 15,000 feet - July 2020

Climb Mt Kilimanjaro - July 2022

London Marathon - October 2022

For Summer 2024 I am planning on carrying out a huge challenge that involves walking 100 miles in 1 go in under 36 hours. I will share more details of this as details are finalised. This will be my biggest challenge yet.

In November 2023 I was awarded the Gaz Emmerson Fundraiser Of The Year Award by Sarcoma UK. I collected this award at 10 Downing Street at an awards ceremony celebrating some of the greatest people within the Sarcoma UK community. I am so honoured to have been nominated and to have been chosen as the winner of this award.

As part of my fundraising for Sarcoma I am hoping to raise as much money to be donated directly to Sarcoma UK. Your donation of any amount would be a great help.

Your generosity will play a role in the efforts to find a cure for this dreadful disease.

Thank you so much for your continued support and taking the time to read my account of Rob's story.

You can follow Robs story on Instagram @Walkingwithsarcoma and on Facebook at Zeds blog - Walking With Sarcoma

Thanks - Chris