On the 29th March,25 Giselle Hudson and I will be walking the Bath 50 Ultra Challenge (31 miles) in memory of my gorgeous niece Charlotte Simpson who lost her battle to Bowel cancer at the age of 18 💔

Keeping Charlotte’s memory alive is all we can do now, it’s so important to me to do that while raising as much money as we can for this amazing charity!

We have already been doing lots of training and will keep you posted along the way before the big day!

Thank you in advance

Louise and Giselle xxxx

Please read Charlotte’s heart breaking story written by her mum Sarah.

In November 2019, Charlotte complained of feeling full after eating and started to be sick after every meal. She went to the doctor, as she’d also had stomach pains and was losing weight, even though she was already tiny. She explained her symptoms clearly and blood tests were taken, which showed she was anaemic. She continued to be in a lot of pain and so went back to the doctor, where they did more blood tests, which didn’t show up any other problems. No further investigations were done at that time though.

She knew there was something seriously wrong when she went to the toilet and found blood in her poo. She returned again to the doctor, who said ‘if you were older, I’d be extremely worried’, and booked Charlotte in for an emergency colonoscopy. This was just before Christmas, and we were sent an appointment for January 6, where a consultant examined Charlotte for five minutes and referred her for a colonoscopy – we had understood that was what that appointment was for.

We ended up in A&E twice at the start of January 2020,, as Charlotte was in so much pain, where I asked ‘how ill does she have to be?’

The hospital carried out further blood tests and checked over her lymph nodes, and we were told they were all fine and no lymph nodes were up. Doctors said because of her age, it was likely to be inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

I called the hospital every day to get her colonoscopy booked in, which she finally had on the 16 January. They found a massive tumour pressing on her spine, which explained why she had had such bad back pains. She had an emergency MRI that night and a CT scan the following day, and was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer. The tumour had spread outside of the bowel wall, laying on her spine with extensive spread in her peritoneum, the surrounding lymph nodes and stomach lining.

Myself and my husband David knew how serious the diagnosis was and that she would never be okay, but nobody grasped how aggressive the cancer was and how quickly it would take her. I knew she would have to live with bowel cancer for the rest of her life, but hoped she would have at least a year or so. We spoke to lots of people on the Bowel Cancer UK forum - it was really helpful to hear their experiences, and we found out many had also been diagnosed very late because of their age.

Charlotte wanted to give it her all, and specialists advised trying to shrink the tumour and then operate. But she got worse and worse every day and was in constant agony. She started chemotherapy on 5 February, the day after her 18thbirthday, which we all hoped would help to give her some relief from the terrible pain she was in and some quality of life. We even hoped that she might be able to go back to college, where she was studying for her A-levels. However, the chemotherapy didn’t work.

Charlotte was in and out of hospital in agony, and had a stoma fitted in March, which was horrific for her at the age of 18. She couldn’t eat or poo and kept being sick. She had moments when she was in so much pain and didn’t want to carry on.

She was so poorly and the cancer got hold of her so quickly, none of us had chance to process it was happening. She hadn’t eaten properly for three months. At her last CT scan we knew something was seriously wrong, she couldn’t even absorb her medicine, and Charlotte said "I’m going to die". She just never recovered from the stoma surgery and at the end of April we were told she was going to die.

Charlotte came home from hospital two weeks before she died. There was no way we were going to let her stay in hospital, and we worked tirelessly with the Rowans At Home team to make her as comfortable as we possibly could. Charlotte died at home at 10.45am on May 22 2020, four months and one day after she was diagnosed. Myself, David, Charlotte’s 15-year-old brother Elliott, and her boyfriend Scott were all with her holding her hand, and she fought and fought to stay with us. She didn’t want to die.

When a child is diagnosed with cancer life becomes full of fear, for them and their family. Fear of treatment, but also of families being torn apart, overwhelming money worries, of having nowhere to turn, no one to talk to.

At Young Lives vs Cancer, we help families find the strength to face whatever cancer throws at them. But every day 12 more children and young people hear the devastating news they have cancer. We’ll face it all together – but we can’t do it without you.

To find out more visit www.younglivesvscancer.org.uk