Family Spotlight
Nicola talks about how we've been able to support her family, and her work on developing The Little C Club:
“I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer when my youngest child, Poppy, was just 4 months old. It had been almost seven years since my primary breast cancer so to hear cancer had returned and was now incurable was devastating. I’d been told during treatment for my primary cancer that it was likely I would be rendered infertile by chemotherapy, at the age of 26 this was one of my darkest moments, I struggled to get my head around the idea I would never be a mum for almost 3 years before we decided to we would at least try to start a family, so I could never express just how l lucky I feel to have two wonderful children, Dylan and Poppy. There isn't a day that I don't worry about how my cancer will affect their lives and have spent many hours researching ways that I can make sure they are supported, this is how I stumbled across The Chris Aked Foundation and I have been absolutely blown away with the amount of support they have given us. From swimming lessons to subscription boxes during lockdown, and the amazing special day to Peppa Pig World, nothing has been too much to ask of the foundation.
My own diagnosis has fuelled my passion for improving the way we communicate with children about cancer, our own fear can stop us from sharing what we are going through and this is so damaging in the long term. I'm a firm believer that knowledge is power and sharing a reasonable amount of information with our children will help them process the things they experience throughout our treatment and hopefully make it a little less scary. With all of this in mind I have been working on what I hope will develop into a series of books addressing different stages of illness and ultimately parental loss. I also teamed up with a fellow mum with secondary cancer to develop The Little C Club, a series of flash cards that we hope will change the way we communicate with our children about cancer.”
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