Mum’s on the run.

I hope this title isn’t too alarming. Don’t worry, my mother is still bringing me food, driving me places and hasn’t upped sticks and left after this getting too much for her.
What she IS doing is probably seen as just as crazy to the more horizontally inclined of us. It has involved 5.30am alarms, lycra and an attempted pasta ban (!)
Very soon she will be running the Cardiff Half Marathon, all in aid of Anthony Nolan.
Isn’t that amazing!?

Up until now our fundraising has been mainly based around for cake, me talking at people to persuade them out of their money and bucket collects. No lycra. That’s all changed now though!

Somehow my mum has ended up a runner. I’d like to think it wasn’t my fault, but that would be total delusion! I had originally planned to do the race myself, however my body had different ideas, and bone marrow transplants don’t train you very well for much beyond the sofa! Thankfully my mum doesn’t blame me completely and has another reason bar it being in replacement of/on my behalf.
Linking nicely with it being for Anthony Nolan, she wanted to improve her health- so that if she were to be called up to be a bone marrow donor for someone else, she would pass the medical.
See what I mean when I say my mum is fab!
Please, I feel I’ve kept it quiet but I really have spent most of this summer in hospital. It would have been incredibly easy for her to have given up, passed her place on and just not given herself the stress of juggling training as well as me/other 3 kids/ hospital/stuff.

I don’t want this blog to be all ‘my mum, my mum’….she does have her own voice.

“We started like so many as part of a New Years resolution. Couch to 5k  was our aim. Week one after 43 seconds I was broken. Admittedly I hadn’t run since 1985 when I did 800 meters, but we kept with it. I have run every week since. Sometimes in the snow, around the car park while Emily has been in radiotherapy, sometimes so early Lobby isn’t up (!) We have surprised those around us and amazed  ourselves.”

It’s not just her though- she has formed ‘Team RemissionPossible’ with two other school mums and between them they are also running for Bloodwise and Look Good Feel Better. All worthy causes I think you’ll agree. For me, between them they represent my passions in charity work to with cancer-
– Bloodwise are funding research to try and bring the day when all 137 types of blood cancer are cured, and make the treatments kinder.
– Anthony Nolan are finding lifesaving matches for people who need bone marrow transplants  (need I say any more?!)
– Look Good Feel Better are all about making that time with cancer easier, by reinstilling women and girls with confidence in themselves. As a recipient of this charity’s work I can surely say if you look good, you do feel better!

So mum (Donna) , Rachel and Victoria, Tanya and Beth- I think you’re bonkers but amazing! While I had intended on doing the run myself, you would never have seen me tackling a 10 mile run on a Sunday morning, nor leaving early enough to be BACK in time to make breakfast! Heroes.

I’d love it if you could take a moment and donate some money towards their cause. The support will get them through the miles but MORE IMPORTANTLY fund the awesome work if the charities that have contributed so immensely into getting me where I am today. I can certainly say without the work of Bloodwise and Anthony Nolan I wouldn’t be typing these words, and without Look Good Feel Better I wouldn’t be doing it with as much confidence. 

Remember, every little helps! Here’s their team page where you can donate to their induvidual pages https://www.justgiving.com/teams/Run4Remission

Keep Smiling (and running) 💃💃💃👟
Emily

Appeal Update: Please sign up.

Since telling you all of my news on the 17^th, STUFF has happened.

Lots of stuff.

I have had my first round of chemotherapy, and though there were a few hiccups along the way I am now home and feeling relatively ok. If I am honest the fact it is my younger sister’s 16^th birthday tomorrow is a more daunting prospect than side effects at the moment. I am sat on my sofa, and just waiting for my neutrophils to drop, and make me ‘susceptible to infection’ and for the rest of my blood counts to lower- potentially making me need a blood or platelet transfusion. It’s all right though.

As you may have heard, my sister Holly unfortunately isn’t a match. It was a massive blow to our family of course because it really would have been the easy option. It would have been hard, with the process of Holly donating being tense due to her diabetes and just generally a tense time due to the importance of the donation. If Holly had been the donor it would simplified things. We wouldn’t have to worry about the respect of there not being a match. We wouldn’t have had to worry whether despite all our effort, I have to endure further chemo, just to wait for a donor. It would be easier.

Obviously this isn’t an option now, and complicates things slightly. Anyway, I’ve never rally don things the easy way, otherwise I wouldn’t have done science Alevels or done the course in Imperial College last year, or applying to uni without AS levels or even having cancer firs time round. Doing thing the hard way just gives us the opportunity to achieve more I think.

The progress on donors has been quite frankly incredible. We have had 519 clicks to Delete Blood Cancer and Anthony Nolan (!) and from what we have heard so far, we have around 300 people who have signed up to the registries SO FAR. (This is just from my rubbish social media counting…)

This IS just the start. Some local companies have decided to run donor recruitment days, place the registry details on their office intranet and some places have printed the details on their payslips.

I regularly wish I was a more interactive writer, better comedy and portraying the sometimes incredible strangeness in my life but at this moment, however showing the seriousness of is key. I need a bone marrow transplant. I will need to have one to live. Right now, my best option is a generous, selfless thinking member of society that is also miraculously a HLA match for my blood. A match from an unrelated donor is coincidental, and hard to find so I need as many people as possible to sign up and maximise the chances of my finding a hero. Many of you ask about the potential for being tested specifically for me, but the thing is there are thousands of people out there as well as me looking for matches, looking for thir heroes. If you join the register, you could be one of their heroes. You could be a 12 month olds baby’s lifesaver, or a mother of three’s lifesaver, a teacher, nurse, firefighter, student or aspiring ballerina’s lifesaver. Or you could remain on the register and never be called up. Give yourself the opportunity to become that hero.

Joining the stem cell/bone marrow register is a big thing. Huge. If you donate it will involve needles, and blood. But it would also SAVE SOMEONES LIFE. I urge every one of you reading this to sign up, encourage others to sign up, or find some other way of supporting. It means the world to me, and could one day result in you saving someone’s world, perhaps mine.

Like I said, if you sign up it is an awesome, super-duper, cool, heroic and awesome thing to do. So shout about it. Scream from the rooftops, subject your Facebook friends to the news, and frenzy your followers on twitter. We want to see #RemissionPossible ALL OVER social media. We want to see your swabs, your spits, the kits and the sign up notifications. We want to see it ALL. If you feel like you’re spamming us, you’re doing it right. The first swabbing pictures are beginning to come in, and I love it!

Our Facebook is RemissionPossible (www.facebook.com/remissionpossible2014)

Our twitter is @remissionpos

As always- to sign up to be a bone marrow/stem cell donor…

If you are 16-30 years old register at www.anthonynolan.org

If you are 18-55 years old sign up at www.deletebloodcancer.org.uk

Please note RemissionPossible as your reason for signing up.

Now, if you are unable to sign up for one reason or another (a 74 year old lady was disappointed to be unable to sign up this week, amazing!) please, please don’t leave it there. In Britain we love ‘nominating’ people to do stuff, so why not try and recruit ‘Just one more’ onto the register.

Thank you for all the well wishes,

Keep Smiling,

Em xx

It’s not over til the Fat Lady sings.

Some bad news today I’m afraid.

It’s something I had always hoped I would never have to blog about, and something more frightening to those affected by cancer than the initial diagnosis. I can’t quite believe that I’m writing this blog.

Relapse, recurrence, end of remission are just three ways to describe it.

Yes, s**tily enough, my cancer has come back.

*inserts crying, swearing, and general negative emotions here*

This is why I’ve been so quiet recently, in blogging and social media.

So, as of last Thursday, when I got sat down with my consultant and told the results of my scan, I am once again a cancer sufferer/patient/whatever. I have Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, again. This time, I’m 17. This time I have a university application to cancel. This time I’m being open about it, broadcasting almost. This time I might need YOUR help. I am of course devastated, I had just applied you University and my life was getting back on track. There’s not much point in moping over it all though.

Now I’m not dying, please don’t think that. There is a plan, there is treatment, and I will get through this again. Second time round though there are quite a few differences in approach.

I’m going to need a Bone Marrow (stem cell) transplant. The very thing I’ve been harping onto you all about infrequently, is now going to save my own life. Seeing as chemotherapy clearly hasn’t gotten rid of my cancer for good, this time we’re bringing out all the weaponry, guns blazing to kick this cancer’s ass, good and proper, and forever. I will have more chemo, and then the transplant.

Some of you may be in the know, but a bone marrow (stem cell) transplant involves the donation of stem cells from someone with matching HLA groups, which ae transplanted into someone who needs the ells, to beat their cancer or other blood disease. The donor will be a living person, who will not suffer any major side effects from donating, just the knowledge that you have helped potentially save someone’s life.

My transplant donation will come from someone selfless, as above. My 15 year old sister will be tested to see if she is a match for me, but this is only a 25% chance. The likelihood is that I will have cells donated from an unrelated donor, a stranger. A hero.

If I have a stranger donor, it will be because they signed to a registry and made a ‘pledge’ that they would donate if they were ever needed.

I’m asking something now of all you reading this blog. Please, if you are able to sign up to be a potential Bone Marrow (stem cell) donor. It will increase the chances of there being a match for me when the time comes, and could help one of the other 1,800 people who will need a transplant this year, in the UK alone. Or you may help someone net year, or the year after, or even someone overseas. The possibilities are vast.

This Bone Marrow donor business, is something I guess most pople will at least have heard about, especially if they are a follower of this blog. The thing is, it’s not just someone needing you to become a lifesaver. Now, it’s me- Emily Clark, the teen pinning these words down, the girl who aspires to be a doctor and loves to sing is the one urging you to join a registry. If it has been something you’ve just scrolled on past or dismissed as irrelevant SIT UP AND LISTEN. It’s real for me now. Really, really real. I hope an emotion within you, whether it be sorrow because of my cancer returning, empathy and pity for ‘that’ girl with cancer, or admiration incites a want to SIGN UP.

There is more concise information on my Become a Lifesaver: Join the stem cell register page, but for now, focus on what your reaction would be if I were your sibling, child, parent, family member or friend (maybe I am) would you immediately sign up? Would you offer to be tested to see if you could donate? If the answer is yes, then please join the register, or at least enquire to find out more. Do it for me, do it for the other 1,800 people.

So many of you, when faced with bad news think ‘I wish there was something I could do to help.’ To put it frankly there is.

If you are 16-30 years old, sign up to be a lifesaver via www.anthonynolan.org

If you are 18-55 years old, be a hero and sign up at www.deletebloodcancer.org.uk

I can’t ask in any other way, and I hope what I’ve done shows quite how important this cause is.

Imagine the impact if everyone reading this signed up, and then got Just One More to sign up, who got someone else to sign up….so on and so forth. We could make a massive difference. I say we, it’s only you who can get the ball rolling.

This has been hard to write, and even harder to post, but I hope it makes an impact.

I’ve been in remission once, and I will be again, hopefully soon. I’ve said before, together we can help #makeRemissionPossible

I’ll keep you all up to date on me, I’m having my Hickman Line put in tomorrow.

Keep smiling,

Em x

Me in Southampton, You Saving Lives

 

Hi there!

Sorry for my recent silence, I’m sure you were all incredibly disappointed to have a blog to red last week, but I have been elsewhere!

I have much to talk to you all about as a result!

First of all, the reason I didn’t blog last week was because I went to

Me holding a starfish!

Southampton on a university summer school, run by the oil company BG group. To put it frankly…..it was amazing!

I was doing a marine course, and though I’m not looking at doing it as a career, it was incredibly interesting and was just the most incredible opportunity t have what with some of the things we did!

I got to go on a boat which is worth over 1 MILLION pounds and sail around Southampton Water, doing scientific measurements, I got to look at plankton under a microscope….though perhaps most importantly (jokes!) was the fact we got to go Laser Quest (yay!)

Blog 9- Pants on Head

Hi all! Bet I can guess what you’re thinking…. PANTS on HEAD?!?!?!?!

Well watch the video below to find out what the hoosit I’m going on about! (but first read about me!)

So I’ve been busy busy as per usual, but not with RemissionPossible stuff so much….but with SCHOOL!

I’ve gone back into school  properly this week, and have been absolutely LOVING it! It really has to be said I am such a nerd. A part of my school  stuff is doing my WelshBacc individual investigation. Cry. Now, because I am interested in a career in medical research, my investigation needs to look at a topic surrounding this- anyone have any ideas??? If anyone reading this is a research scientist PLEASE help!

Also I auditioned for my school’s annual musical tday- Jesus Christ Superstar. I love doing shows, yet am not particularly drama-ry…. It’s just too much fun!

I have three things tied for top exciting thing of the week-

1. I’m visiting Bristol uni open day tomorrow, and some of their courses sound A-MAZ-ING.

2. Harney Sons & Teas have confirmed they will be sending tea for the gift boxes!

3. The recipient of the Gift box really appreciated it, and said it was the most thoughtful gift they had received. (look back to an earlier blog (7) for more details.

I’ve also been looking into some fundraising ides, including a dress up day for my 6th form!

NOW, onto the VLOG

 

 

HELP HOLLIE #putyourpantsonyourhead @helphollie

Help save the life of this 8 year old girl.

Sign up to be a stem cell donor at http://www.anthonynolan.org (16-30yrs)

OR at http://www.deletebloodcancer.org.uk (18-55yrs)

YOU COULD SAVE HER LIFE.

PLEASE consider signing up.

Thanks.

Keep Smiling.

Em x

 

(sorry about the film quality)