She went from patient to starter. Kayla Esson, 22, stood at the front of 1,100 runners in Aberdeen on Sunday and blew the horn that sent them off. A year earlier, she was sitting in a consultant’s office hearing she was in remission.
The difference is not lost on her. Kayla was treated for primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma.
It is a rare non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It sits behind the breastbone, between the lungs. Hers was pressing against her heart.
That is what got her rushed to hospital in the first place. She started chemotherapy on March 12, 2025.
Six sessions total. On June 22 last year, her consultant Dr. Gavin Preston told her the cancer was gone. She did not keep the news quiet.
She went to her gran. She went to her best friends. One by one, she told them.
She had been posting her cancer journey on Instagram and TikTok. The remission announcement fit that pattern — direct, personal, shared.
Now she is a trainee ambulance technician living in Buckie, Moray. On Sunday she was guest of honour at Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life. The event offered 3k, 5k and 10k routes.
Her mother, Nicolle Beattie, ran both the 10k and the 5k. She did it in her daughter’s honour.
More than £100,000 was raised. That money goes to scientists working on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Kayla said she felt incredibly proud to stand on that start line.
She also said her first thought on diagnosis was whether she would die. She said she wishes she could have seen then where she is today. “What a difference a year makes,” she said.
“I’m doing well now and I’m determined to pay it forward to help others.” She has already been named Hero of Heroes at the 2026 Moray & Banffshire Heroes Awards. That happened in April this year.
The award came before the Race for Life appearance. The timing matters. She was not celebrated after the event.
She was celebrated for the journey itself, for documenting it, for surviving it, for telling people one by one. There is a specific weight to a young cancer survivor launching a race.
She is 22. She works in emergency medicine. She faced a tumour pressing on her heart.
She did six rounds of chemo. She marked one year in remission by standing in front of more than a thousand people and sending them off to raise money for the same kind of research that saved her. That is the story.
It does not need embellishment. The money raised — over £100,000 — will go to Cancer Research UK.
The scientists who get that funding work on ways to prevent cancer, diagnose it earlier, treat it more effectively. Kayla’s own treatment worked. She is paying it forward, as she put it.
That is what the horn blast on Sunday signalled. Not just a race start.
A continuation. Her mother ran 15 kilometres total that day. Ten and then five.
In her daughter’s honour. Kayla watched. She had already done the hard part.
