Jeanette's BRAVING THE SHAVE for Marshall&LATCH

Jeanette has spent her entire life caring for children. It's her love, her passion and her life. There have been plenty of families who have touched her heart over the past 50 years that she has been caring for children, but none more so than the family of Marshall Stephenson.  So to raise money for this truly amazing family and the children's cancer charity LATCH, she has decided to brave the shave on 12th November!! 

Here's a little information about Marshalls story....... 

Marshall was diagnosed with Leukaemia on Tuesday 16th July 2019. He had not long turned 3.

Here is an insight to their story as told by mum Cat. 

Murph (Marshalls nickname) was struggling for a couple of months with severe but non-specific symptoms - nausea, sickness, fatigue, lethargy, irritability, screaming, night sweats, restlessness, not sleeping, pain in his body, especially his back and behind his knees etc.

After taking him to the GP 3 times, I decided it was time to get in front of a paediatrician however I could, and after blood tests we received a call after just 6 hours asking us to go to hospital.

It didn't take long for them to diagnose Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL).

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is a type of cancer that affects the white blood cells. It progresses rapidly and aggressively and requires immediate treatment. Both adults and children can be affected.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is very rare, with around 650 people diagnosed with the condition each year in the UK. Half of all cases diagnosed are in adults and half in children.

Although rare, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is the most common type of childhood leukaemia. About 85% of the cases that affect children occur in those younger than 15 (mostly between the ages of two and five). It tends to be more common in males than females.

The MOST helpful thing for us right now is for people to help us out with incidental expenses... all the things we weren't planning for!

We live in Haverfordwest and our treatment will mostly happen in Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales, Cardiff. It's a 4-hour round trip and after our initial long stay, we'll need to do that 3 times a week for quite a while.

It is also going to affect our family life dramatically. Will works full-time and I was just starting to start working for myself again after my second maternity leave (our second son Kolby just turned 10 months old).

Will won't be going back to work for some months, and I also won't be in a position to work either.

The chemotherapy treatment will be intensive for around 6 months, followed by a further 2.5 years which hopefully will be less intensive.

Once the 3 years of chemotherapy have been done, he will be monitored for a further 5 years - so all being well in 8 years' time we will be able to declare him cancer free!

It's going to be a long journey, but one that we're fully up for fighting.

If you can help to buy us a Pot Noodle, put a few quid's worth of petrol in the car or maybe get Murph some Lego on the dark days... that would be fricking awesome.

Much love, Cat, Will, Murph and Kolby xxxxx

Jeanette has decided to brave the shave on 12th November to raise sponsorship to help towards Marshall, his family and the charity LATCH, who have already provided so much help and support  to the family. Any sponsorship support will be hugely appreciated by Jeanette, Marshalls family and LATCH. 
Any amount raised will be split 50:50 between Marshalls family and LATCH at Cat and Wills request. 

Thank you so much for reading. We hope you can support this extremely worthy cause for such a wonderful family xx