*** UPDATE*** -Thank you! Thank you! £10,000! You have all be so incredibly generous, and we are just overwhelmed. Every donation has made this possible! We have a chat with the Matron/Ward Sister on Monday (28/02/2022) as to how we can get this machine to the ward ASAP (as you can imagine there are some logistics!). We have upped the amount we are trying to raise to keep the page open and the higher the amount we raise, the higher quality machine they can purchase (£10,000 unbelievably is the entry level cost!)

So we’re reaching for the stars and going for gold!! Today (26/02/2022) we have been on Starlight exactly 26 weeks, and there’s something poetic that exactly 1/2 a year from Archer being admitted onto the ward, we can tell them they have funds for a Blood Gas Machine!

***OUR STORY*** August 2021 was a month we were not prepared for (and no family ever should be). The month our 3 year old, Archer was diagnosed with Stage 4, Burkitts Lymphoma.

After battling with the GP for 3 weeks, with what we were told was a cold, we made the scary decision to call an Ambulance. We were blue lighted to our local hospital, where Archer received a head CT, which showed a gigantic mass filling any and all empty space in Archer’s head.

My husband , Sam and I, were taken into a room, asked to sit down, and it was then I saw, only for a second, the ‘Consultant Oncologist’ badge, at first as he started talking I was convincing myself that it did not read, Oncologist, but maybe ‘Opthalmologist’ , but the nurses sat in with us didnt look up from the ground, so I knew I had read it correctly. Then it was confirmed, the word Cancer left his mouth.

We were then blue lighted to Bristol Children’s hospital, where Archer underwent a full body MRI and biopsy of the tumour in his head. We then waited (something we have definitely had to learn to do a lot of), whilst we waited in HDU, time dragged. Then the same ‘look‘ came to the door, the eyes over the mask, the sympathtic shoulder pat, and asked to follow them to a side room. We quickly learnt that a trip to a side room meant something awful was coming. I remember thinking, there is no way anything worse can happen to us. Oh, how wrong was I.

We were met by a Consultant Neurologist whose first words were ‘you have an exceptionally poorly little boy’ the MRI showed the cancer was in Archer’s nose, sinus’, left optic nerve (the cancer eventually took Archer’s sight in his left eye) throat, had diffused into his skull, was aggressive on both of his kidneys, in his cerebral fluid circulating his brain and spine and also his pancreas. We then met the Oncology team of Starlight Ward and so this rollarcoaster (than none of us wanted to be on) began….

We came to Starlight Ward 28th August, and as I write this on 21st February we are still here. This is the ward that gave Sam and I the worst news (again in a side room) of Archer’s cancer being Stage 4, Central Nervous System positive and Cerebral Fluid positive, there was no where to escalate Archer‘s cancer to, he was already there. Starlight is also the ward that gave us the best news of our lives, that Archer is in remission, and everything in between (You’d give up reading!)

Starlight is also a Bone Marrow Transplant centre for the entire South of the UK. So they care for some extremely sick children with both Oncology, rare blood disorders and BMT. Which is why they NEED a blood gas machine on the ward, there isnt the funding. Members of the Starlight team have to run down to the day unit, which shuts at 6pm or to the PICU (Paediatric Intensive Care Unit) to get a blood gas reading. This takes valuable time away from the patient and a delay in the care they need.

We have seen first hand the urgency for this machine, unfortunately through watching our own child have Sepsis twice, an allergic reaction to a drug, Cytarabine Syndrome and Pneumonia (to name a few). We have watched the stress come across people’s faces at the time it is taking to get these (what should be) instant bloods. The team here are having to evidence that they need one - insanity (I digress, back to these brave, superhero children).

There are not enough words, time or oxygen for us to say ‘THANK YOU’ to the Starlight nursing team - not only are we taking our son home soon, but we are taking ourselves home complete. The team have held us up, picked us up and pieced us back together. After every blow, they‘ve been there. So we want to give back, and hoping you can help us make their incredibly hard, gruelling shifts easier and safer for this childhood cancer world that is not spoken about enough.

Anything you can give will be greatly apprecaited, and THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!