Nieve

It is hard to put into words everything that Ursula, Chris their family and the team have done for us and given us, I have tried below but as I write this I can not express enough the overwhelming feeling of gratitude, respect, friendship and sense of belonging I feel when writing about them.

When we first discovered that our daughter had cancer our world fell apart. We were told about CWCF by our community nurse who came out to see us every week, she explained to us what the charity does and the support they can give to families in our situation. She asked if we would like to be contacted by them. We said yes that would be great not really understanding or realising what they could do for us as all our focus is on our daughter.

Having a child with cancer is terrifying and very isolating, as all your focus is on your child and their illness, their next appointment and just coping day by day, hoping and praying that everything will be ok.

Asking for their support was the best move ever.

Chris, Ursula and the rest of the team made this journey bearable. They have given us an amazing support network, time out when need for the whole family to remember what having fun is all about rather than focusing on our daughters illness, opportunities to be able to meet other parents in the same situation in comfortable environments so if we want to talk we can if not we can just build relationships and friendships.

My daughter asked for a laptop so that she could keep up with her friends at school when she was stuck in hospital and still continue with her school work. We could not have managed to get her one of these but CWCF to the rescue and Nieve received a Laptop and what a difference it made to her she felt a little bit more in control of things around her and keep up with everyone, and when she was able to return to school she was aware of what the other children had been learning and was at the same level therefore giving Nieve the opportunity of being a confident learner and not feel singled out because she had missed the previous lesson.

I asked my daughter what CWCF has done for her and she said ‘giving me friends who understand me, someone I can talk to if I need to, a reason to be proud of who I am, confidence to try new things and happy memories’.