Thank you to everyone who kindly donated to the Freddie's Fearless Three Challenge - we made new friends on the way and enjoyed every minutes of it, tired but happy!

Frederick James Wills was born in March 2006.  The early days were spent doing all the normal things which new parents do, taking him to the zoo, walking on the beach pushing his pram and visiting family and friends.  But when Freddie was three months old he became ill, very suddenly. He was admitted to hospital and then our world fell apart and a nightmare began. Freddie was diagnosed with leukemia.

He was taken by ambulance in the middle of the night to Bristol Children's Hospital, miles away from home and straight into intensive care. The next few days were a daze, he underwent immediate treatment to try and bring down the high white blood cell count.  After a few weeks he was able to go onto the CLIC Sargent children's cancer ward which was to be his home. He underwent extensive chemo and endless lumber punctures, medicines etc. to try and get him to a point where he was able to have a bone marrow transplant.  He relapsed twice until, after Christmas 2006, he went to the BMT ward to have his transplant.

Everything was going well, but a month after his transplant, a blood test showed that the leukemia had returned, this time into his spine and had travelled to his brain.  There was no more that they could do for Freddie and we returned to Exeter Hospital where Freddie would live until the end.  He died in my arms on 2 May 2007.

From day one at Bristol Children's Hospital, CLIC Sargent were there for us all. We stayed at CLIC accommodation close to the hospital. There was a CLIC play worker, Sam, on the ward, CLIC social worker, Cyla, who helped with organising mundane things to help you keep your mind on helping Freddie, CLIC nurses, CLIC doctors. CLIC Sargent did so much to help us.

Living on a hospital ward  takes its toll, but CLIC Sargent were there for us and all the other parents who were going through the same experiences. We will be forever indebted to them.

"Emma and Helen have kindly volunteered to come with me on the challenge. 100km in 24 hours will be tough, we can all hold each other up, mop each others brows and go for it for a well-worth cause".

10 children every day are diagnosed with cancer.  Please support us and help raise much needed funds for CLIC Sargent so they can carry on their work.  Thank you very, very much. 

Rachel Wills