Hi,

I’m Matilda. I’m a writer, aerialist, one of the Artistic Directors of Improbable, and a mother to two extraordinary neurodivergent children, aged 10 and 14, who learn from home. You could say I am still learning from home too, and in the last three years my learning curve has been terrifyingly steep.

At the end of April 2024, the day after I turned fifty, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

People sometimes talk about turning fifty as entering the second half of life, even though most of us won’t reach a hundred. I assumed I still had decades left. Instead, immediately after my birthday, I was confronted with the possibility that I might not.

Until then, I had never spent a single night away from my children, but that year I spent weeks in hospital undergoing intensive chemotherapy. By the end of '24, the treatment had worked. I was clear.

But by the end of the next year, I was not.

In Nov 2025, tests showed the leukaemia was back, at a smaller-than-microscopic level. Because of the nature of my disease, the doctors expect it to become a full relapse unless treated. My best chance, I am told, is a stem cell transplant.

That means more intensive chemo, more weeks in hospital, and someone else’s cells put into my blood.

I am frightened. It is a risky treatment. I am also deeply grateful that this possibility exists.

But I also want to be proactive in my healing - to seek support from a range of alternative practitioners with experience in oncology to help me survive and even thrive, before, through and after any transplant.

I’m a writer - I believe that anything can hold meaning, and that inside trouble there is always a glint of gold - an invitation, a possibility. You can follow my quest for this in my Substack: ‘Adventures in Wellness’ and through the poems on a pole I am making every month. However, I don’t have much actual gold to fund the support I seek. There is a gift in this too because it means I have to be brave and reach out, invite others onto this treasure hunt with me.

You can join me in a few different ways. You could:

1) Make a donation through this page - any sum would be tremendous.

2) Sign up to my Substack, as a paid or free subscriber. https://substack.com/@matildaleyser

3) Help me fundraise: do something you have always wanted to do - climb a mountain, take up pole dancing like me, make lemon meringue pie, walk a pilgrimage route - whatever brings you joy - and invite others to sponsor you through this page.

4) Or don’t worry about the money - do something extraordinary that brings you more alive simply for the sake of doing it. Help me, in spirit, find the treasure within the trouble. And please tell me the story of it: I love stories. I believe they help us heal. .

Thank you for whatever part you wish to play.

I promise, if and when - and let’s say when - I am out the other side of this, I will pass on whatever gifts I receive now. Because the treasure isn’t mine - it’s to be shared, and that is what makes it so precious.