Jade de Croos

This March Ed & I will be swapping our wellies for our running trainers and taking part in Run 100 miles in March for Young lives V Cancer.

March 25 will bring a whole host of emotions to the surface, Ernie will have his next 3 monthly scans, and the first ones first following 3 months of no treatment. 

The physical and emotional strain of being a parent to a child with cancer is crushing, but it doesn’t get a whole lot easier being a parent navigating life after childhood cancer either. 

Ernie is certainly leading the way for the Team DC return back to some sort of normal life, he is thriving, so to follow his lead we are trying our best too as well. We will be running March away, dealing with that time between scans and results, and the worry of what happens if the cancer is back, whilst raising awareness & hopefully some funds for a charity that we would have got through our journey without.

On March 12th last year Ernie had his life changing surgery at Bristol Children’s hospital (150 miles from home) to remove the tumour and his right kidney, Young lives v Cancer gave us the chance to stay at CLIC house, a home from home for families on their childhood cancer journey.

It gave us a safe space minutes from the hospital for those crucial days post surgery while he was in high dependency to have a little head space, cook, wash clothes & keep Evie with us. 

We are very aware our support network kept us up last year in donations and support, we also know how tough times are. But if only 20 people we knew gave the equivalent of 1 take away coffee during the month of March it would pay for a family just like ours to have that comfort of a nights stay in CLIC house whilst going through the turmoil of cancer.

The support we have had and continue to have from our support worker Racheal has been invaluble. The help with managing finances, emotions & mostly the support for Evie. When we needed it most she was here, at our house simply spending time, playing games and holding Evie tight with us like she was part of our family, and if we can help another family feel the support we did we will be so happy.

We may be a bit crazy, after spending the majority of last year sleeping on hospital beds & very little exercise we are not at our fittest, and finding the time with two children for us both to run 100 miles each will be interesting, some will be spent next to Evie riding her bike, and some buggy running with Ernie in tow, because whatever we face, we face as a team! 

Not to mention the hills, we seem to live in a very hilly part of Cornwall. BUT no hills we will climb will compare to the hills these children have to face during treatment. 

So with our Ernie leading the way and lending us some of his determination & strength to get through anything… here goes 👟👟👟