SWINDON CANCER APPEAL: IF you've been touched by cancer in some way, help us in our campaign to raise cash to fund two Macmillan nurses who will make a real difference to local people in Swindon.

This is not one of those appeals where your money simply disappears into a nationwide pot.

The Swindon Cancer Appeal means that YOUR cash will fund the nurses posts at Great Western Hospital.

It will also pay for a specialist consultant in cancer care who will work at GWH and the Prospect Hospice.

But funding these people does not come cheap.

It will cost around £200,000 a year to maintain these posts plus that of a part-time expert in pain control.

The Adver needs to ensure that enough money is available to pay for them for three years because then the NHS will take over the costs. Thanks to individuals and companies like Nationwide which donated £80,000 we have amassed £92,081 in just a few short weeks.

Scores of money-raising events have been arranged over the coming months.

However, if every person living in the borough put just £1 towards the Swindon Cancer Appeal we would exceed this year's target.

More than 2,000 people in Swindon were referred to hospital in 2002 with suspected cancer.

Cancer patients in the town already benefit from the support of 11 Macmillan nurses at GWH and the Prospect Hospice in Wroughton.

But as the number of people in this area being diagnosed with the disease continues to rise, the demand for more nurses increases.

Macmillan nurse Vanessa Davey is the face our appeal. She has touched the lives of more than 500 cancer patients and their families in Swindon.

Vanessa, 31, is the clinical nurse specialist in palliative care at Swindon's Great Western Hospital.

It takes a special kind of person to excel in a job where reminders of human frailty are an everyday occurrence. But she says that is all part of the challenge.

She became a Macmillan nurse three-and-a-half years ago. She said: "I get a great amount of job satisfaction. I feel that being able to help someone prepare for their own death is a very privileged position to be in.

"All nursing jobs have time constraints but with mine I have more time to sit down with my patients and talk through their worries. It's a very important part of it and one that I like very much.

"The family members who are left behind are also helped and it is comforting for them to know their loved one died with dignity and in as little pain as possible.

"Patients' main worries are how the disease will progress and how they will die.

"Over the years I have nursed a lot of people who have died so I'm able to give them an honest idea of what to expect.

"It's often the case that what's in their head is far worse than what actually happens. That may be because in years gone by medicine wasn't as advanced and deaths weren't as dignified."

To make a donation to the appeal online, click here.

Tell us about your fundraising event, click here.