Unite and fight for Shannon
Donation protected
Can I get your attention for just a few moments and ask you to read this....
I'm a mother of 3 children, my oldest two are twin girls of 10 years old. When the girls were just four months old I met a fellow twin mummy whose twins were just a few months older, Shannon and Isobel. Their mum Sam and I have become very close over the years and our twins are in the same class at school. I've watched them grow into the beautiful little ladies that they are today.
I'm about to tell you about one of the twins....Shannon. Here is her story so far:
Shannon was born on 24th May 2005 weighing 5lb 8oz, conceived with the help of fertility treatment. Shannon is like any other 10 year old, she loves reading and dancing. She is a massive fan of little mix. Her favourite subject at school is science. She has aspirations to work as a scientist, her reasoning is to find a cure for cancer after seeing her nan suffer terminally.
Anyone that has met her has always commented on the little character she is, so confident and mature for her years.
Over the last few months Shannon has been feeling poorly and a rash appeared all over her little body. She was taken to the doctors, who also noticed that her little body had lots of bruising but being the active little girl she is, the bruising is a common sight for Sam...dancing into things and bumping herself from running around have always been the norm. Sam was told it was a suspected platelet concern. As a parent, that concern was already very worrying. Later that evening on the 7th November 2015, Sam's world came crashing down around her, she was faced with a diagnosis of leukaemia. T cell Leukaemia ALL, Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is her exact diagnosis.
Shannon took all the news in her stride not realising for a moment just how poorly she was and still is. Sam shook herself off and realised she had to be strong, how could she expect Shannon to be strong if she showed her any fear or weakness?...that was her attitude.
Sam is and has been as strong as an ox, and to say I'm proud of her would be a massive understatement! She is amazing as is dear little Shannon.
Shannon was later transferred to the cancer research centre, The Royal Marsden hospital in Surrey which is over 40 miles away from our home town. Sam has travelled to and from The Marsden countless times already to still be a mummy to Isobel and also their older brother Justin.
Shannon was an inpatient here for over 2 weeks and is responding so well to the chemotherapy treatment. She's had countless blood transfusions, countless bone marrow collections and a pip line inserted.
She's due to have a chest port in December, this obviously carries risks for her also.
Sadly Shannon lost her hair after just 3 weeks of treatment, which I'm sure anyone who has a ten year old daughter would understand how difficult this is for Shannon.
We're only a few weeks into her battle and Shannon will now undergo treatment for a minimum of two years.
What I want to do is try and make life a tiny bit easier for my friend who is unable to work as she is a self employed hair dresser and at the moment her precious time is devoted to her 3 children, mainly hospital appointments and caring for Shannon. I want to arrange an event where I can fundraise and I'm hoping what we can do is help with the financial strain that this family are facing, to assist with things like travel expenses and day to day costs, so she doesn't have this worry on top of everything she is already going through. I'm asking for any help that anyone can offer. I need a venue, face painter, entertainer, donations....anything that help me raise money. I've never arranged a fundraising event so any offers of help or suggestions is what I'm asking for. Most importantly I'm asking for everyone to share this so it reaches as many people as possible so that I can get as many children to attend this event which I'm hoping to take place around Easter time to allow enough time to spread the word. I'm also hoping our story will raise awareness of childhood cancer and the symptoms to be aware of as they are symptoms that can easily be missed.
I'm grateful that a lifelong, wonderful friend of mine is also helping me with this so any suggestions, ideas, donations contact myself or Jo Ward.
Thanks for reading this, may I request you share amongst friends and family to spread the word and keep an eye out for our event, we would want as many people to come as possible. Once we've hit our target of £3k we will donate any extra to the building smiles charity, which you can find on Facebook under building smiles, and depending on the amount we raise, we will divide some between Macmillan, click sergeant and the marsden hospital.
I'm a mother of 3 children, my oldest two are twin girls of 10 years old. When the girls were just four months old I met a fellow twin mummy whose twins were just a few months older, Shannon and Isobel. Their mum Sam and I have become very close over the years and our twins are in the same class at school. I've watched them grow into the beautiful little ladies that they are today.
I'm about to tell you about one of the twins....Shannon. Here is her story so far:
Shannon was born on 24th May 2005 weighing 5lb 8oz, conceived with the help of fertility treatment. Shannon is like any other 10 year old, she loves reading and dancing. She is a massive fan of little mix. Her favourite subject at school is science. She has aspirations to work as a scientist, her reasoning is to find a cure for cancer after seeing her nan suffer terminally.
Anyone that has met her has always commented on the little character she is, so confident and mature for her years.
Over the last few months Shannon has been feeling poorly and a rash appeared all over her little body. She was taken to the doctors, who also noticed that her little body had lots of bruising but being the active little girl she is, the bruising is a common sight for Sam...dancing into things and bumping herself from running around have always been the norm. Sam was told it was a suspected platelet concern. As a parent, that concern was already very worrying. Later that evening on the 7th November 2015, Sam's world came crashing down around her, she was faced with a diagnosis of leukaemia. T cell Leukaemia ALL, Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is her exact diagnosis.
Shannon took all the news in her stride not realising for a moment just how poorly she was and still is. Sam shook herself off and realised she had to be strong, how could she expect Shannon to be strong if she showed her any fear or weakness?...that was her attitude.
Sam is and has been as strong as an ox, and to say I'm proud of her would be a massive understatement! She is amazing as is dear little Shannon.
Shannon was later transferred to the cancer research centre, The Royal Marsden hospital in Surrey which is over 40 miles away from our home town. Sam has travelled to and from The Marsden countless times already to still be a mummy to Isobel and also their older brother Justin.
Shannon was an inpatient here for over 2 weeks and is responding so well to the chemotherapy treatment. She's had countless blood transfusions, countless bone marrow collections and a pip line inserted.
She's due to have a chest port in December, this obviously carries risks for her also.
Sadly Shannon lost her hair after just 3 weeks of treatment, which I'm sure anyone who has a ten year old daughter would understand how difficult this is for Shannon.
We're only a few weeks into her battle and Shannon will now undergo treatment for a minimum of two years.
What I want to do is try and make life a tiny bit easier for my friend who is unable to work as she is a self employed hair dresser and at the moment her precious time is devoted to her 3 children, mainly hospital appointments and caring for Shannon. I want to arrange an event where I can fundraise and I'm hoping what we can do is help with the financial strain that this family are facing, to assist with things like travel expenses and day to day costs, so she doesn't have this worry on top of everything she is already going through. I'm asking for any help that anyone can offer. I need a venue, face painter, entertainer, donations....anything that help me raise money. I've never arranged a fundraising event so any offers of help or suggestions is what I'm asking for. Most importantly I'm asking for everyone to share this so it reaches as many people as possible so that I can get as many children to attend this event which I'm hoping to take place around Easter time to allow enough time to spread the word. I'm also hoping our story will raise awareness of childhood cancer and the symptoms to be aware of as they are symptoms that can easily be missed.
I'm grateful that a lifelong, wonderful friend of mine is also helping me with this so any suggestions, ideas, donations contact myself or Jo Ward.
Thanks for reading this, may I request you share amongst friends and family to spread the word and keep an eye out for our event, we would want as many people to come as possible. Once we've hit our target of £3k we will donate any extra to the building smiles charity, which you can find on Facebook under building smiles, and depending on the amount we raise, we will divide some between Macmillan, click sergeant and the marsden hospital.
Organizer
Jo Twin Murphy
Organizer