A Berkshire woman who lost most of her pelvic organs to a rare cancer has paid tribute to the Princess of Wales after she completed the National Three Peaks Challenge, saying her message about life beyond diagnosis ‘speaks directly to everything I’ve been through’.
The Princess climbed the UK’s three highest mountains — Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon — within 24 hours, to raise awareness and funds for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, the hospital where she received her own cancer treatment.
Katie Arding, 31, from Reading, is hoping to climb Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro later this year to raise money for Sarcoma UK. Her climb will come two years after a gruelling 12-hour operation saved her life from a sarcoma so rare her doctors had never seen anything like it.
In a message shared after completing her challenge, Princess Kate wrote that she wanted to raise awareness of ‘the deeper impact of serious illness and the importance of holistic healthcare,’ adding that cancer ‘doesn’t just affect the body’ and that ‘the journey through and beyond treatment requires more than medicine alone’.
For Katie Arding, those words resonated deeply. ‘What the Princess has said sums up so much of what I’ve been through,’ she said. ‘It’s not just the physical side, it goes deep down into how you feel about yourself as a person, as a woman. Knowing that someone in her position has put herself through something like this to shine a light on that really does mean a lot.’
Katie and her boyfriend Rhys had gone travelling in 2022 and arrived in Australia in 2023, where she set up her life. Then, eight months later, at the end of August 2023, she found she was unable to wee. Eventually, she couldn’t go to the toilet at all, and Katie was taken to hospital one day when she was doubled up in pain. She was told she had retained two litres of urine. Her bladder was so enlarged that she looked pregnant.
A CT scan found a 10cm mass in her pelvis. One theory was that it might be a fibroid. Tests followed and a nurse told Katie that it could be a rare sarcoma cancer. This was then confirmed by a biopsy in early September 2023.
Katie saw a doctor in Australia who had worked at the world-renowned Royal Marsden Hospital in London, and he recommended she return to the UK and be under their specialist care. She followed the advice and returned to the UK and became a patient at the Royal Marsden – the hospital which has also treated the Princess of Wales.
At the hospital, Katie was given chemotherapy and told she would need a 12-hour operation called a pelvic exenteration. It would remove the tumour plus Katie’s anus, rectum, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and one ovary.
Katie said: ‘When I was told about the operation, my body went numb and I put my head between my knees. I told them to do whatever they needed to do. I was in fight or flight mode.’
The surgery took place in March 2024, leaving only her bladder and one ovary. Katie had her vaginal wall removed and reconstructed with part of a buttock. She was left using a stoma.
The operation was a success, but Katie says she is ‘more traumatised by the operation now than at the time’. She said: ‘It was fight or flight. The other option was worse. I had to stay strong for the people around me.’
Following surgery, Katie received therapy at the Royal Marsden to help cope with the emotional impact. ‘It has affected me deep down about how I feel about being a woman. I have kept active and focused on other things.’
Katie, 31, has been supported throughout by her family, friends and boyfriend.
There was a further scare when, in July last year, a scan found something suspicious on her hip bone. Katie received high doses of radiotherapy over two days, which shrank it to nothing. She continues to have scans to monitor her wellbeing.
She was told her sarcoma was a cross between leiomyosarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma – something that her doctors had never seen before.
Katie, who had been a hairdresser, says she is not ashamed of her body and is now helping other cancer patients who may have issues with body image by starting a wig business called Maneique, which she finds ‘rewarding’. In addition, she shares her sarcoma story as well as business and travel content on Instagram @katieardingg
Katie is planning a 19,000ft climb of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds for charity Sarcoma UK and has been in training. ‘I have been going to the gym to get my strength up. I had lost muscle on one side after the surgery. I have been in pain when working out, but that is getting better as I build up strength.’
Sarcoma UK’s Director of Fundraising and Communications, Kerry Reeves-Kneip, said: ‘When the Princess of Wales talks about bravery being about staying grounded and present no matter the landscape you’re walking through, Katie Arding is living proof of exactly that. To face a cancer so rare her own doctors had never seen it, endure a 12-hour operation, and then set her sights on Kilimanjaro, that is resilience in its truest form. This weekend, the Princess of Wales reminded us all that recovery isn’t just physical; it’s about finding the courage to keep moving forward. Here we have, climbing mountains, two women with one shared message: that life beyond a cancer diagnosis can still be full of determination, courage and possibility.’
