We would love to help raise money and awareness for this charity, PACT, as they offer vital support to families of children with cancer at Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital. And they helped myself and my family at the most vulnerable time of our lives. 

At 6 years old on just another seemingly normal day in January 2020, our eldest daughter Ruby, suddenly collapsed in the school playground. She was rushed by ambulance to Grimsby A&E and was then emergency referred to Sheffield Children's Hospital on the same night, where she was then quickly diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. To say the bottom of our world fell out, would be an understatement. The care she has received and is still receiving from the incredible staff at the Sheffield Children’s Hospital Oncology/Haematology department has been nothing short of exceptional. She is thankfully currently recovering well, after rounds and rounds of chemotherapy, leading to a stem cell transplant in the summer of 2020. Her younger sister Mabel (2 years old at the time) was her life saving donor 💫💞. After everything, Ruby is still that lovely girl who shares smiles and spreads joy everywhere, inspiring others with her bravery. We have bursted with pride with the way she is navigating herself and us through, taking it all in her stride, she really does light the sky up above her.

The PACT team are the people who provide the seemingly simple things on this journey. 

A home from home, the house they provide for us travellers, which is a few minutes walk from the hospital, personally our round trip from Grimsby is 140 miles. 70 miles each way, sometimes every 48 hours. Some children can even live up to 100 miles each way from their daily essential treatment. PACT House is a clean, affordable, safe space with extra facilities as they know how important it is to keep families together, when constant travel isn’t possible or even physically doable. The kitchen is also useful for making meals from scratch, to give a child even just a little taste of home and comfort. 

The free hot meal they provide the parents and guardians daily on the ward, as food is the last thing on your mind after being drained by the unspeakable things that our children have suffered that day. 

The glowing treat trolley for the kids to provide a much needed sugar hit, if possible, after a hard day of facing all the scary. Or for the worried young sibling visiting their poorly sister or brother. 

The chance of a trip or a holiday for precious quality time together, when it would normally have been financially impossible for families because of all the additional costs associated with long term illness and gruelling hospital stays (transportation, fuel, car parking etc etc etc). 

The fight of the endless boredom, when they and you can be stuck in isolation for long, lonely, hard stretches of time by helping provide a host of activities to distract, even if just for a minute from the heaviness of everything around you. 

The support groups, coffee mornings and countless other hosted meetings to help families band together to provide each other strength, to help us cope and feel less alone. 

The untold extra support, a hug, a smile, a check in, a bit of banter and a cup of tea, when it all just seems too much to bear, to give you that boost to just keep moving forward. 

These seemingly simple things, actually make the biggest impact. And this incredible, small charitable team provides all this and still so much more, even down to research and life saving equipment for the ward. 

And we can help them. Anything that can be donated at all will mean that you are directly helping and effecting the journeys of these brave, wonderful young lives and their families for the better and it will mean the world to them. It did, still does and always will to us. 

You can donate online here to please help us pay our gratitude forward and to honour the support we as a family have received in our journey and help families right now, sat in this heart breaking situation. We will also be doing other charity events locally in Grimsby, so please keep an eye out for the PACT logo. 

Thank you. 

As always, to health, remission and advancing therapies for all. 

All our love, 

The Leaning’s & Family ❤️

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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