My God Brother who is the same age as me (14) has recently been diagnosed with a rare form of Leukaemia know as the Philadelphia chromosome:

In our body we have 22,000 Genes, some are on and go off, some never come on. They identified gene 9 & 22 which have split in half and fused together making a fusing gene. This is called Philadelphia. It is very rare 5% of children have it, and because of this strain the genes in the blood are on all the time. The drug Imatinib blocks the fuel source starving it and Chemotherapy kills it, at least this should be the case. With this treatment it will hopefully be wiped out. The problem is because of the low number of children affected by this strain, it is hard to know all the facts. Currently Torin is at home, but constantly tracking backward and forward to the hospital. When he is at home the treatment makes him very hot and an air purifier would help to assist with the cleansing of the air for any room and also with cooling. Any money over the amount raised would go toward helping with the installation of a downstairs toilet as Torin is struggling to walk up the stairs, and he likes to be downstairs with his family and friends.

As an act of solidarity with my God Brother I will be shaving my hair in school, and for anyone that knows me, they know this is a very big deal as I have had curly locks since I was 2, but I don‘t care right now as I just want to help in whichever way I can. Please try to help where you can. Hopefully this will help my God Brother feel a little better and assit with his ongoing treatment and recovery. Thank you for taking time to read why I am doing this, with your help I hope to see Torin back on his surfboard and hitting the waves again soon.