AN ALMONDBURY teenager is taking to the skies to celebrate his mum’s amazing recovery from bowel cancer.

Patrick Wondergem, 18, will be jumping from a plane when he takes part in a tandem sky dive next month.

The laboratory technician will be raising money for Beating Bowel Cancer, after his mother and grandmother were both affected by the disease.

His grandmother Kathleen Meehan died from the illness when she was just 60.

Six weeks later, his mum Fiona Wondergem – her daughter – was given the devastating news she was also suffering from the condition.

She was just 40 at the time and had three children under nine.

Fiona, now 49, said: “It was really traumatic but sometimes you just have to get on with it.

“Even with my family history, I still didn’t think it would happen to me.

“It was a real shock, especially because I didn’t feel I fitted into any of the risk categories. I wasn’t overweight, never smoked, hardly drank and was generally fit and well.

“But I was lucky. It just wasn’t my time.”

Fiona, a nursing lecturer at Huddersfield University, visited her GP after she became concerned about changes in her bowel habits.

“My nursing background meant I was aware of bowel cancer,” she said.