Hutchinson Chappell Cancer Battle

This was a very hard thing for us to do.    We were asked by a lot of people to set something up so they could give us practical help so here we are.

We are the Hutchinson and Chappell family.  Just an ordinary family going through the motions of life.  Mum (Nicky), Dad (Ian) and two amazing kids, Erin and Luke.  Dad is a self employed builder and me (Mum) looked after the kids and home and ran a small business from home.  Last year I had many months of ill health and after being taken into hospital as an emergency in August it was discovered I had stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma.  Our life changed in a second, emotions were high we were all frightened about the future.  I began a very intensive chemotherapy which unfortunately, every time I had it, landed me in hospital with no immune system fighting infections which wouldn’t normally have been a problem, if I had an immune system.  

Throughout all this Ian tried to hold down his job, when you are self employed there is no annual leave or sick pay. He worked tirelessly during the day and then every other waking moment was spent food shopping, cooking and cleaning and basically doing everything but we managed.  

Going to and from the hospital with me and looking after the children whilst I was in hospital meant he was unable to work on many occasions and before long the small amount of rainy day money we had, had all gone.  

We felt pretty hard done by as whilst all this was going on, my daughter had to have surgery for a fibroid, we had 2 major gas leaks, a condemned boiler, our beloved Golden Retriever died and various large kitchen appliances gave up on us.  When I look back that was the easy times.  

On 17th January our world was blown apart on every level. Our beautiful wonderful daughter, just 2 days before her 18th birthday, was diagnosed with Uterine Sarcoma.  We were rocked to the core, everything we knew had changed.  Fear became our constant companion and total utter disbelief that the beast otherwise known as Cancer had hit two of us at the same time.  Work became impossible for Ian as we spent most of our time at the hospital for either myself or my daughter.  As I write this on 30th January my 18 year old daughter faces a hysterectomy next Tuesday with my chemotherapy the day before.  Ian is desperately trying to get as many hours as he can at work but with a long road ahead for my daughter and my inability to do much due to the effects of my chemotherapy most of his time is spent ferrying us backwards and forwards to hospital and meeting all of our health needs which is a full time job without the day to day needs of running a home.

We find it very hard asking anyone for help but there comes a time when you realise that you just can’t make it on your own.  We aren’t asking for help for anything other than just meeting the bills, just for a few weeks to free Ian up to look after us all.  We have an amazing family who are helping where they can and support from friends has been overwhelming.  We will beat this, we will get through and walk into the sunshine, we just need a bit of help to get there. We would hate anyone to feel obligated to donate, but people were asking how they could help us so please don’t feel pressured, please don’t give more than you can afford and we love you all just for taking the time to read our post.

Nicky, Ian, Erin and Luke
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