£50,985 has already been raised towards Laura’s £80,000 target

Laura sadly passed away on 22/2/22. She was the kindest, strongest and most inspirational person you will ever meet. We all loved her so much. She always put other people first, even though she was going through her own treatment. I have had to start a new donation page as Laura’s original one expired. Laura has raised £16,935 so far towards her £50,000 total. I will carry on her amazing campaign with the help of my friends and we will smash that target for her. Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated. Here’s the link for Laura’s original page if you want to check her previous progress:

www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/laura-kendrick1

I'm Laura & in April 2020 I was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer at the age of 40. I am a wife & mum of two young boys (8 & 11) and legal guardian to three beautiful nieces (15,17 & 24) who sadly lost their Mum back in 2016 to secondary breast cancer, at the young age of 40, a year after her diagnosis. Cancer has devastated our family.

I have been going through treatment and surgeries for the last 18 months and I can honestly say it has been the most most difficult and heartbreaking time of my life. A cancer diagnosis is devastating and takes so much, on so many levels. Sadly, I know many of you reading this will have experience of this, either personally or through a loved one.

Professionally I have worked in the NHS for the past 14 years as I have always been passionate and committed to improving care for patients. My professional and personal world aligned when I become a cancer patient and therefore a service user, I was (and still am) in desperate need of our NHS to save my life.

Having now experienced first-hand the impact of a health care sector in desperate need of a more progressive approach, my work has become about transforming outcomes for cancer patients by creating awareness of the mind body connection, a connection that is simply not recognised in our current healthcare cancer pathways.

I have huge admiration for my colleagues working within the NHS, never more so than over the last 18 months. Staff are exhausted, under funded, under paid and under staffed. Whilst I can say I have experienced some excellent care, unfortunately that has been limited and my experience over all has been challenging and at times, has broken my soul and deeply impacted my mental health.

Kindness and Compassion. Consideration of the language used when holding an incredibly difficult conversation. Kindness is scientifically proven to improve our own internal immune system, a system that us cancer patients are desperate to keep working for us.

As a stage 4 cancer patient I was written off from the start. There is no room for miss interpretation of the way I was spoken to, I was written off and brutally delivered the message by my care provider. I am not a statistic and I learned very quickly I needed to be my own advocate. I have researched, challenged, questioned and challenged again to get the best treatment and opportunities for survival. This is an ongoing battle with my health care provider. Their language breaks me at almost every conversation. The NHS is a huge system and it's systemic and mechanistic approach to cancer care is not good enough for cancer patients.

My #KindnessVsCancer campaign is seeking to revolutionise the current systemic approach to cancer care by raising funds for the NHS Oncology teams to receive training that introduces an approach to patient care which places compassion and empathy at the heart of their interactions, from diagnosis through to treatment and beyond.

I'm passionate about using my experience as both a senior professional operating within the NHS and as a cancer patient, to revolutionise and transform the current approach to cancer care in the UK. Fundraising starts today with the aim of raising £50,000 by the end of January 2022. The funds will be spent on delivering compassionate conversations training and education in NHS oncology teams to understand the mind body connection and its impact on patient wellbeing. A proportion of funds will also be provided to Hello Beautiful, a charity based in London who offer incredible services for cancer patients, both at their space in London and also virtually.

Patient experience is everything. Hope is everything. Cancer patients deserve more and deserve better.We are stronger together. Cancer patients deserve better. We all deserve better. check out www.kindnessvscancer.co.uk to find out more.