A teenager from Shropshire who survived childhood blood cancer has written an open letter of hope to help other children battling the disease.
Ed Garside, 17, from Telford, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when he was just 8 years old after he suddenly became extremely tired, pale, and developed unexplainable red marks on his legs.
Ed received over 3 years of treatment at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Birmingham's Children Hospital, including around 10 months of intensive chemotherapy during which he experienced his worst side effects including hair loss and severe fatigue.
Ed says: "I wrote this letter because I want to help as many children as I can who are battling through the same disease. I want them to take hope from my battle against cancer, I want to inspire them and make them believe that they too can beat cancer. No matter how difficult it may seem, cancer is beatable. I am proof of that and I want all these brave children to realise and believe that cancer can be beaten."
To mark Blood Cancer Awareness Month in September, Bloodwise has launched a national campaign to highlight the urgent need for better, kinder, and less toxic treatments for children. Blood cancer is the most common cancer among children and young people, and over 1,100 under-25s are diagnosed every year in the UK, usually with either acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or Hodgkin lymphoma.
Current childhood blood cancer treatment is brutal, can last for years, and in addition to hair loss, vomiting, and fatigue can result in extended periods away from school, isolation, infertility, and an increased risk of further cancer in adulthood.
Dr Alasdair Rankin, director of research at Bloodwise says: "The reality is that one in five children diagnosed with the most common type of leukaemia still do not survive, and that those who do often experience devastating side effects both during and after treatment. This is simply not good enough. We need to save every child's life, make the treatment process much kinder and give them the life they would have had without cancer. Only by funding more research into better treatments will we be able to finish the job that has been started and give children the best possible cancer treatment."
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