Author: Lorraine

Yesterday (Sunday) I met up with some very special people, the cast of Shine for Sally, a team of talented people who put on a spectacular show last December, to raise money for Milly’s Smiles, Rory’s Box and Derian House.

The dance extravaganza was in memory of beautiful Sally, and raised a total of £5,300.00.

Sally’s family have become good friends and mum Jo and daughter Milly come along to our SOULS group every month.

It was during one of our groups that Jo persuaded me to dig out my tap shoes and take part in the show! So for the first time in 23+ years I found myself tapping in front of a rather large audience!

I feel so honoured to have been part of Sally’s show and am thrilled that such a wonderful amount of money for all of the charities.

A huge thank you to everyone involved and everyone who supported the show.

Volunteers are the backbone of any charity and ours are no different.

We are blessed to have some amazing people who help and support us when needed, they do this selflessly and because they want to help us make a difference for children and their families suffering with cancer.

Today, Carrie, Steph and Lucy kindly gave up their day to spend it at Morrisons to raise awareness of our work and to find some elephants their forever home.

They did a truly outstanding job, and I love them for it, thank you so much you amazing people we are so lucky to have your support

Had a fabulous morning with 2 ladies from Harrison Drury Solicitors today to talk about how they can support us over the coming 12 months as their charity of the year.

There are already some fantastic ideas in place to not only raise funds but to also raise awareness of the work we do.

We are really looking forward to a fantastic year with a lovely team!

We have been to Ward 3B at Alder Hey this week to make a delivery of our Milly Bags.

Our bags are provided for every single new admission onto this ward to help families dealing with an unplanned hospital stay during a very frightening and worrying time.

We want families to know we understand their fears and concerns and whilst we cannot take any of this away we can make that initial time on the ward that little bit easier.

Thank you to Graeme and John for great delivery service and to the fabulous Housekeeper Louise for all her help.

We are so grateful to be making a difference every single day.

We are honoured to be the chosen charity for 2024 for @Avidly UK & Canada. Milly’s Smiles were chosen after we supported one of the teams family members following their daughter being diagnosed with cancer, several years ago.

We were thrilled to meet with not only the team but also with mum Sam whose daughter we supported.

It was lovely to be able to speak to the staff about our work and explain what we do, whilst also having Sam there to talk about the impact our Milly Bag makes, not only from a practical perspective but an emotional one too.

We are really excited to be working with everyone at Avidly over the next 12 months. They already have some brilliant ideas not only for fundraising but also more practical ways to support us, like bag packing, volunteering at upcoming events, collecting toiletry items and lots more.

We took our final delivery of the year over to Ward 84 Oncology/Haemotology Manchester Royal Childrens Hospital yesterday (19th).

Sadly children continue to be diagnosed with cancer during Christmas and that’s why we make certain that there is always a Milly Bag waiting for them.

We can never change the diagnosis or the outcome but we can make the start of the journey a little bit easier, and that’s exactly what our Milly Bags do.

Proud and humbled to make a difference every single day.

Huge thank you to Graeme and John for kindly making the delivery, and massive thank you to everyone who continues to support us, we remain forever grateful to you all.

On Eddies 4th birthday he wasn’t quite well. Nursery had noted that he was much quieter than usual and was spending a lot of time napping in the book room. We took him to see 4 medical practitioners over the course of 4 weeks who didn’t really know what was going on but suspected it was a back to back virus. I just thought he had picked everything up from nursery, as children do. I never once suspected anything worse.

After 4 weeks, he eventually had bloods done and within 12 hours, we were called by the local hospital and told that Eddie needed to come to the hospital ASAP for more tests. We were transferred to RMCH who have been incredible for the past 3+ years – they’re now part of our extended family. We still hadn’t been fully told that he had leukaemia but we knew that it was most probably this. We were cared for by the most fantastic set of nurses and hospital staff you could ask for.

Eddie has had more medications than any person should have to take during their lifetime and although he has never gotten over having to have the wiggle put in (hickman line), he has overcome many medication battles over the years.

We’ve had some really touch and go moments during treatment where he had a seizure and where a fungal infection practically took over his body, and he’s become close to being admitted to ICU but overall, he’s been relatively well throughout treatment.

Its been tough for Eddie because we welcomed his brother into the family 5 months after diagnosis, immediately followed by lockdown a week later and then losing all his hair so there’s been an awful lot of change and adjustment. He’ s been such a superhero though throughout.

We were given a Milly’s Smiles bag on the first week that we arrived on the ward. I had kept hearing all about the Milly Bags but did not realise how amazing they were until I opened it. I was literally in tears at what was inside it and couldn’t believe we had received something so wonderful at such an awful time.

In February, Eddie rang the End of Treatment Bell and in July he had his port out. Its been a scary step stopping all the chemotherapy, steroids, antibiotics and weekly appointments but we are slowly adjusting to our new normal. Fingers crossed everything continues to be positive!