A milestone in my recovery
In 2017 Willow created 1,300 Special Days for seriously ill young adults across the UK. James tells us what his Special Day meant to him…
"The news that I had metastatic melanoma came completely out of the blue. My wife was seven months pregnant with our second daughter, I was self employed and had been working extra hours to secure ourselves financially before we became a family of four.
Hearing the news that I have cancer meant that all of our security vanished. We had a turbulent time dealing with a newborn baby, a toddler, the constant hospital appointments, my surgery and sporadic periods of work. Our family relationships were put under such severe stress by the impact of my diagnosis, I struggled to care for our daughters; our eldest found things particularly very difficult.
When I realised that I may be eligible for a Special Day I felt that this was the opportunity we needed to have some dedicated family time. We hoped that this would be the start of us being able to rebuild our relationships and a chance for me to show our toddler that I was still a ‘fun’ Daddy."