Our lives have been truly shattered and torn apart after the loss of our selfless, kind hearted beautiful girl Kia, words can't describe the heartache we are all going through.

We as a family are dedicated in making sure Kia’s loving spirit lives on in order to change lives and help others.

Kia was the sweetest most loving soul you could ever possibly meet, who met life head on with a smile on her face every day, despite everything she went through, she still managed to make everyone laugh even though the world seemed set against her, somehow Kia never ever let life get her down and would do anything to help others.

Her heart was big and her love was pure! 💜

In the last few weeks that Kia had been sadly given and whilst going back and forth to Manchester Hospital for countless blood and platelets transfusions. She realised just how dull life is for adults with cancer in hospital and how there is so much less support from any charity’s, yet there is a lot who only prioritise children.

Kia had dreams she said, “Once I’m out of here I want to make changes!”

Kia wanted to create wishes for everyone with cancer as her words were, “Everybody has wishes not just children it doesn’t matter if you’re 3 or 53 adults deserve a wish too".

Kia also wanted to make the hospital rooms and wards a much happier uplifting place to be in whilst you’re going through the most depressing, challenging time of your life.

Imagine being told you only have weeks left to live, but you spend a lot of those days from 10am to sometimes 10pm staring at the same white wall, but you do that because you need the treatment so you can go home again and spend some time with those you love the most.

Kia said "I wish those walls could be different, I'm grateful I get to see the wall again but it would be much nicer if it was a mural, or something nicer to look at". I couldn't help but think she was right and not a lot to ask for.

One of Kia’s last wishes was to have a Christmas party, (Kia LOVED Christmas) she asked could she wait till after Christmas to have her transplant, but sadly was told she simply didn’t have that long left to live.

Kia wanted the biggest Christmas winter wonderland party for all her friends and family to remember, just one last Christmas.

Luckily we managed to make that happen and had THE most amazing night.

We’ll look back and cherish that night and those memories made forever.

Kia didn't stop smiling all night!

Although it very nearly didn't happen as we really struggled to find any charities to help support creating her wish, as they were all for children.

Thankfully our town, friends and family all came together and helped create a magical night just in time.

Kia also had another last wish of going to Paris and Italy which sadly we couldn’t make happen as she simply ran out of time.

With Kia’s spirit still guiding us we want to make sure with your help and support that everyone gets the chance to have their final wish and make their lives just that little bit better, even when their world is crashing down around them.

We are sure with your help together we can make Kia’s final wish come true.

To bring CHANGE to peoples lives and those family members and friends who are also affected by cancer.

A story - Whilst leading up to her unsuccessful transplant, Kia had to attend haematology unit for many blood & platelet transfusions.

Here she met an elder man who had been given a year to live. She asked him "Did he have a wish?" To which he replied "Not really no he was old and had lived his life". She said "Surely you have one wish? please have a think about it".

Days later we bumped into that same man.. She asked him again if he had thought about a wish. He replied "Again I had a think but all I want to do is keep hanging on that bit longer so my little grandchildren get older an have chance to remember who I am, that's all I could ever want, for them to actually remember me".

She replied "so you do have a wish then! How much do you think your grandchildren would love to spend time with you an go to a special place together maybe Disneyland to create a wonderful memory and have fun with you?" He said "Yeah, they would love that, they’ve always wanted to go there". She said "so, maybe your last wish is to take them on their dream holiday to Disneyland they'll forever remember with their grandad. They’ll look back one day in years to come and say remember when grandad took us on that amazing holiday to Disneyland" He looked nodded his head and replied "Wow your right, I never thought of it that way, I suppose I do have a wish then."

Sadly this man and so many others won’t ever get that wish.

However, it was Kia’s dream amongst everything else to change this.

Everyone deserves just one last memory, one last smile with their family for them to remember them by surely.

Kia asked me, "Mum, if I lived could we try make that man's wish come true?"

Kia’s medical story -

Kia was born with an extremely rare genetic disorder called Shwachman

Diamond Syndrome (SDS).

From being just a few weeks old she spent countless battles with numerous infections due to her having no immune system but she had the biggest will to survive.

Kia spent most of her young life in and out of hospital fighting for life.

Living with SDS comes many many problems, every infection, even a simple cold is life threatening to them but one of the biggest fears to them is the chance of developing leukaemia (blood cancer). Knowing her life could be taken away at any point was a parents worst nightmare.

In July 2010 through a selfless act of kindness from a stranger, whom we still don't know who, but she always called him her HERO, Kia was gifted the best gift anyone could ever wish for, a chance of life.

Kia had been lucky enough to find a perfect match of a bone marrow donor, giving her healthy new strong cells.

Despite the fact she had to go through chemotherapy, lose her hair and have countless surgeries over the years. Kia saw herself as one of the lucky ones, always seeing the bright side of life.

However on 30th September 2024, Kia was given the most devastating news, somehow after 14 years she was now losing her donor cells and her original cells were coming back but with them was also MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndrome) and AML (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) not one but two rare cancers and if that wasn't enough she also had mutations on her TP53 gene (It's like the guardian angel of your cells) it was that rare the doctors said we have never seen it before and gave her only a few months at best to live with no hope of any treatment. We couldn't understand how unlucky our girl could be.

However, Kia still tried to look at this in the most positive way she could, she said "Remember mum, some people don't get chance to say goodbye"

I was absolutely broken but so true.

Kia’s words to the Doctors were “I'm only 26 I don’t want to die” After not accepting nothing we can do for an answer Kia got given the option for a baby's blood chord transplant in order to give her an extra few weeks, months or years. They really didn’t know how long, if anything, it would give her as it had never been seen or done with anyone like her before.

Kia’s words were “Well it sounds like I die or I die anyway, it's which way do I wanna die? Remember though I've been rare before and lived so I'll fight to survive” so that she did.

An after everything thrown at her throughout her short life she put up one almighty final fight but devastatingly it was one too many.

On the 9th January 2025 Kia passed away just aged 26.

We were lucky enough to watch her grow into the most beautiful, selfless, caring young woman she became. Just as she had started to grow within herself, find friends, an create her own little business and just starting to finally LIVE life it was so unfairly and cruelly taken away from her.

It’s got to be our mission now with Kia guiding us from the other side to make sure her dreams to grant people their last wishes and change everything she wanted come TRUE.

It's too late for our girl but with your help we can make that happen, and help others.

Whilst also helping grant peoples wishes and making hospitals a better place to be in. We also want to work closely with other charities who do so much to try help save lives.

SDSuk which is such a small charity without funding will never find a cure for this rare disease, we lose too many precious beautiful souls, way too soon.

Anthony Nolan and DKMS who through signing up to the register and doing a simple mouth swab, find doners who help save children/adult lives just like our HERO gave Kia 14 more years, you could give someone that chance for life too.

If your pregnant or planning to be you could even look to donating your baby's chord blood, I still can't believe this is simply thrown away in the bin, discarded at birth, yet has the chance to potentially save lives, Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and transplant can help you know more about this.

Cure leukaemia who are currently working unbelievably hard on clinical trials to make sure ALL leukaemia has a cure, not just some.

NHS Organ donation and NHS Blood donation. It takes less than one hour to give blood which helps improve or save someone’s life.

Please we ask you kindly, if you can donate even the smallest amount it will go towards creating a real change, happiness and most importantly creating memories some of which might be someone’s last.

A share we will appreciate just as much.

Thank you 💜 together we can make a difference in Kia's name and keep her light shinning bright.

We will never see our beautiful girls smile ever again and it breaks our hearts, but by creating wishes for others, and making changes we can hopefully see their smiles instead.

We know it would mean the world to Kia but it would change the world of those still here fighting every day.

Let us See How Angels Work! 😇

Love The 💜✨️SHAW✨️💜 family! x