On Saturday June 1st we are taking on the St Agnes trail run as a team. We are a group of 6 dietitians based on critical care at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

We are doing this to raise money for the CLIC unit. This small but mighty place is the paediatric oncology ward at the RCH where they care for kids in Cornwall with cancer. This is our story…

I’m Faith, one of the critical care dietitians at RCH, and over the Christmas period 2021 my youngest daughter Coco, was diagnosed with leukaemia. She was 6 years old at the time.

Watching your child go through 2+years of chemotherapy is heartbreaking; pinning her down for IM chemo, SO many anaesthetics, and her little body battling continuously with awful treatment side effects. We never imagined it would be us. You never do.

We have walked a precarious knife edge of poison vs cure with her chemo regimen but she has made it, still smiling, and we are just weeks away from her ringing the bell. This puts us amongst the ‘lucky’ ones.

We have had intense chunks of treatment in both Bristol and Birmingham but the huge majority of our time over the 2+ years has thankfully been spent here in Cornwall with the wonderful team at RCH on the CLIC ward, level 5 tower block. The ward has become a second home and the team, a second family. I have lost count of the nights spent in those tiny rooms, waking up, putting on my scrubs and heading down the link corridor to work after a bad coffee and a 3 pack of custard creams. These 2 years have been made bearable ONLY because of this wonderful team. The tiny ward however, is tired and funding is needed to make time spent there more comfortable for children and families going through the toughest of times. My wish list is an optimistic one but I would love to fund some or all of the following:

A portable and interactive screen for use during IT procedures (where children are anaesthetised for chemotherapy to be injected into their spinal fluid) to help reduce anxiety and offer crucial distraction.

A static bike to enable parents to keep active during long stays on the ward. I found this really tough not being able to do any exercise whilst confined to a tiny room. This would help parents stay sane (or partially anyway!).

New games, books and jigsaws for families who find themselves (as we did SO many times) admitted for several days with little opportunity or headspace to have packed suitable quantities of games/toys/distractions. 48 hours confined to a tiny room is tough!

An emergency transport fund for parents on the ward who are struggling to afford transport costs / petrol to get their children in for chemotherapy treatment. This is sadly a reality for so many at the moment which is heartbreaking, especially when living through the tough reality of having a child with cancer.

There are plenty of other ideas for the new hospital when this opens its doors in a few years, but this above wish list is for now (and all portable) because between now and the opening of our new children’s hospital, there will sadly be many more local children diagnosed with cancer and cared for on the existing CLIC unit.

Coco has been so brave and dealt with everything thrown at her including the loss of her hair and her ability to walk, with an inspiring amount of stoicism and positivity (plus a healthy dose of attitude!). So, with the same fighting spirit and with all 6 of us channelling our inner Coco, we have decided to take on the St Agnes Trail run (various distances as we are NOT runners!) to have ‘fun’ (debatable), push ourselves and raise some much needed money.

We are not seasoned runners, or at least not for over a decade, so this is a huge deal for us and we are just hoping to finish the trail in one piece and upright.

Any support is so greatly appreciated be it a small donation, raising awareness or just coming along on Saturday June 1st and cheering us on (we will need all the encouragement we can get!).

Thanks for reading.

Faith, Karen, Luke, Chloe, Meghan and Vicki