Kayla Esson spent her working days in the back of an ambulance. Then one day she was the patient, blue-lighted to hospital from her home in Buckie after a scan found a tumour pressing against her heart.
At the weekend, the 22-year-old trainee ambulance technician stood at the start of Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life in Aberdeen as guest of honour. She sounded the starter horn, and about 1,100 people set off on the 3k, 5k and 10k courses at the Seaton football pitches. The crowd cheered her. More than £100,000 was raised for research into preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer.
Her mother, Nicolle Beattie, 40, ran the 10k and the 5k in Kayla’s honour.
“Am I going to die?”
Doctors found a 12cm tumour pressing on her vena cava, the main vessel carrying blood back to the heart. That explained her swollen face and breathlessness. “I was so used to being in the back of an ambulance at work every day helping other people so it was a shock to suddenly be the patient being looked after,” she said. “My first thought was, am I going to die?”
The diagnosis was primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that affects the area behind the breastbone and between the lungs. Her first chemotherapy session was on 12 March 2025, and she had six in all. On 22 June last year, at an appointment in Aberdeen, her consultant, Dr Gavin Preston, told her she was in remission.
She had been recording her treatment on Instagram and TikTok. When the news came, she did not post it first. She went to see her gran and her best friends one by one and told them the cancer had gone.
“The world changed for me when I heard the word cancer. I was young with my whole life ahead of me,” she said. “I wish I could have seen then where I am today. What a difference a year makes. I’m doing well now and I’m determined to pay it forward to help others.” Standing on the start line, she added, she “felt incredibly proud”.
On the course
The route ran past the seafront. Some runners wore fancy dress, and members of the Rock Choir performed for them along the way. The Fit Like Joggers running club turned out, as did six teachers from Kingswells Primary School in Aberdeen.
Simone Bjorkblund led a large group of family and friends who ran in memory of her daughter, Lauren Brown, a mother of two who died of breast cancer in January 2024 at just 34.
The events are not competitive, so people can walk, jog or run at their own pace. Lisa Adams, Cancer Research UK’s spokeswoman in Scotland, thanked everyone who took part. “Sadly nearly 1 in 2 of us will get cancer in our lifetime but all of us can support the research that will beat it,” she said. She said every pound supports work that has helped double cancer survival in the UK over the last 50 years, and she asked participants to hand in their sponsorship money as soon as possible.
Entries for future races are taken through the raceforlife.org website.
