Due to my chemotherapy treatment, I will start to lose my hair very soon. To soften the blow my amazing husband, Dan and our beautiful 7 year old, Sam, have agreed to shave their heads with me to raise money for a charity of my choice. I have chosen ‘Mummy’s Star’.

Friends and family are wanting to join in with their own fundraisers so this page will be used for all donations for all kinds of events we organise over the coming months, not just the 'Brave the Shave'.

We invite all of you to ‘Brave the Shave’ for this charity – share this page for donations, or to simply donate to this amazing charity.

Here's a little bit about myself and my story explaining why this charity means so much to me..

I am 27 years old, married, with 2 beautiful boys; 7 years old and 4 months old. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a highly treatable blood cancer but probably one of the worst to have in a global pandemic – just my luck!

When my eldest son was a year old, we decided to extend our family and began trying for another baby. However, we suffered with secondary infertility and after 5 years of trying our very best with many lifestyle changes, emotional ups and downs we failed to conceive naturally and we resorted to IVF. Our first treatment failed, and we were close to giving up but we just couldn't, we longed for a second child as a sibling for Sam and we had come this far already. So we held our breath and tried again.. Luckily we were successful and our family was one step closer to being complete. We were absolutely ecstatic after 5 painful years it had all paid off. Jesse -our little miracle was born at the end of November 2019 and I threw everything into motherhood. I cherished every single moment nurturing and bonding with our new baby. I exclusively breastfed and he never seemed to be off the boob, he is such a hungry baby, but i didn’t mind at all. Knowing I was providing him with all the goodness he needed to thrive was an incredible feeling and the bond created was indescribable. I hadn’t been able to breastfeed my eldest due to reasons out of my control and I was so thankful Jesse had taken to it so well. Every sleepless night and showerless day I thrived off – it was what I’d waited for for so long.

On 1^st February 2020, when Jesse was 9 weeks old, I found a lump above my collarbone. To be honest none of us thought it was anything serious, I had had my first night out in a LONG time, my body had just gone through pregnancy and birth following 2 rounds of IVF and I was breastfeeding – probably just my body’s way of telling me to take it easy for a while. I sought medical advice anyway and thank god I did. For the next few weeks we travelled back and forth from Cyprus (our home) to the UK for further testing and on 6^th March I was diagnosed with Stage 2a Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. It came as an absolute shock to all of us -
All of the symptoms seemed to be masked by pregnancy and postpartum; weightloss, fatigue, night sweats. Plus no one in my family has ever had cancer and if you know me then you know my family is HUGE! As cliché as it sounds, that moment turned our lives upside down.

I had stopped work, postponed my degree and was fully enjoying our new baby as I knew I was highly unlikely to get the chance again. I was  breastfeeding and it was going amazingly – I really wasn’t ready to give all of that up. I felt robbed, punished, like the world was against me. I fought so hard to find a treatment plan that would allow me to continue but unfortunately, no treatment for this disease is suitable for breastfeeding. Up until that point I hadn’t cried much but having that choice taken away made me sob. I cried and cried and then I
began to pump like crazy to build up a milk supply that would hopefully last a few months – I managed to store about 100 feeds before treatment started – sod’s law is, he now won’t drink them!

The day after diagnosis, we returned to Cyprus for 10 days to pack up our life and say our goodbyes and for Sam to get the chance to say goodbye to his teachers and school friends. Our plans of enjoying the Summer with our boys - no injections, no hospital
appointments, just us 4 - had been cancelled.

 As we arrived back in Cyprus, the Coronavirus pandemic hit; schools closed unexpectedly and anyone who had travelled from the UK had to self-isolate for 2 weeks. We packed up the house, sold the car and came back to the UK without the closure we needed. We didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to anyone or pay any last visits anywhere.

When we returned to the UK, we went straight back into isolation due to me now being in the severely high-risk category I was advised to shield for 12 weeks. We see family through the window and only leave the house to attend hospital appointments. We are starting to make this house our home with the little we brought back in suitcases.

I am currently 1 cycle into my chemotherapy (2 sessions) with another 5 cycles (10 sessions to go). I am not the mum I wanted to be. I don’t do night feeds, I sleep in a different room to ensure I get some sleep most nights, I feed Jesse formula, I can’t take my boys to the park or on walks and the majority of the time I’m too tired to parent. I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive and hands-on husband who is stepping up as a single parent for the next 6 months, he truly is amazing and also to have such easy and resilient children. Sam makes me proud every day
with how well he is coping despite his whole world being in shambles – no normality for him anymore and even after the lockdown ends, we won’t return to ‘normal’ we will have to create a new normal for him- new school, new friends. He really is an inspiration.

I count my blessings daily for all that I am lucky to have but man, do I grieve all that has been taken from me on this journey so far. Cancer can throw all it wants at me but I promise to throw more back every time. It can steal 6 months of my life and those precious moments with my baby but I will hopefully have a lifetime of opportunity to create new memories.

Finding out I had cancer weeks after giving birth to a healthy baby was something I couldn’t really comprehend – something so joyous followed by something so destructive. It’s a very unique and lonely place to be. Mummy’s star offers a place to navigate through the sadness, pain and grief with others who unfortunately find themselves in similar situations. I wasn’t aware just how common cancer around pregnancy
is until I heard about Mummy’s Star.

Mummy's Star is the only charity in the UK and Ireland dedicated to supporting pregnancy through cancer and beyond.
Your donation means that women diagnosed with any cancer during pregnancy or within a year of a birth are able to reach Mummy's Star and the specialised support they offer. They help families to meet others in a similar position, offer small grants to relieve some financial burden, give support to partners and the wider family, promote awareness and support research.

Thank you for reading and please donate! Cancer around pregnancy is real and it happens all too often. Please donate to help people like me receive the support they need.