Below is Hannah's story so far, written by her mum Jayne -

Hannah was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) in Febuary this year. She had been admitted to Sunderland Hospital in January with a suspected bone infection in her shoulder and although her shoulder got better, Hannah remained pale and exhausted. It was a worrying time but we were still unprepared when the consultant told us he was transferring us to the Great North Children's Hospital (GNCH) in Newcastle to rule out the possibility of leakaemia. Hearing that word sent a wave of terror through us and we spent the next 2 days waiting for a diagnosis, imagining the worse. It was a surreal time, walking onto the Oncology ward and seeing children with little or no hair was one of the hardest things I have had to do. I remember yearning for a doctor or nurse to reassure me that all was going to be alright and not worry, but they never did and I accept that now but at first it was hard to believe it was really happening to us and I would have done anything to make it all go away. Instead I was told that Hannah was being treated in the best place for childhood cancer in the country and that everything that could be done to make Hannah better would be done. The doctors and nurses through that time held our hand, drip fed us information and basically kept us from falling apart. 

Four months down the line Hannah's future is so much brighter. She has responded well to treatrment and has a better than 90% chance of making a full and complete recovery. We do feel very lucky, had Hannah been diagnosed in the 1960's her chances of survival were poor, but thanks to advances in treatment, survival rates over the past 30 years have soared. But work still needs to be done. Some children don't respond so well to treatment and other childhood cancers don't fare so well. Cancer is still the main reason why children die prematurely. 

Future Funding is a collaboration between the GNCH, Newcastle University and Cancer Research which aims to raise £5.5 million to create the Newcastle University Centre for Childhood Cancer, a specialist research facility at Newcastle University. This will provide state of the art resources to keep advancing childhood cancer research and ultimately give more children a future to look forward to. This is such a great cause, having this facility will help attract the best research scientists to our region securing the best treatment for our children and also help keep our region at the forefront of childhood cancer research.

Adam is running the Chester marathon in Oct to help raise money and awareness for this charity. This is a tremendous feat and will take many months of training and commitment please sponsor him if you can or spread the word about this Future Funding.