Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

We are delighted to be supporting Be Child Cancer Aware (Beads of Courage) which has proved invaluable in helping a local family through the treatment their five year old daughter has been receiving for a brain tumour over the past twenty months. 

Cancer in children and teenagers is more common than you think with four thousand children and teenagers diagnosed in the UK each year. Some of the cancers that children get are extremely aggressive and therefore require more aggressive forms of treatment. These treatments can be very harsh and unpleasant and leaves them weak and vulnerable to all kinds of infections

Mimi is five years old and was first admitted to hospital in June 2013. She had been extremely tired and used to sleep a lot. After developing a squint and vomiting in the mornings, a trip to the Opticians resulted in an MRI scan at the hospital and the discovery of a tennis ball sized tumour in her head.

Mimi was only three when she first spent a considerable amount of time in Addenbrooke’s hospital, it was there that she was introduced to Beads of Courage (Be Child Cancer Aware).

The Beads of Courage Programme is a new concept being introduced in the UK which is designed to support children like Mimi going through their treatment. It allows them to tell their story using colourful beads. The beads are used as meaningful symbols of courage that commemorate different milestones such as blood transfusions, bone marrow transplants, hospital stays, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments. Mimi’s beads have now reached a length of 8.7m and represent the tough times she has been through, her journey and how far she has come.