Bedford cancer survivor, 8, thanks mum for her support with special fundraising Christmas gift

Young cancer survivor Olivia, 8, from Bedford, was diagnosed with Burkitt Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma just a few weeks before the first national lockdown.

Now home and in remission, she has thanked her mum, Sian Clarke-Rodney, with a special necklace to show just how much her support means.

H Samuel is selling the necklace, named Faith, Hope and Charity, online this Christmas to raise money for CLIC Sargent, the UK’s leading charity for children and young people with cancer.

Olivia and her family have been supported by CLIC Sargent ever since Olivia was diagnosed back in February, after doctors found a mass the size of a watermelon. The young girl first started to feel unwell at Christmas time last year.

Olivia’s dad, Chris Rodney, said: “Before Christmas, she’d go to bed at night and complain about a stomach ache – like normal kids do, she would come back down and say ‘my stomach really hurts’. We’d say have a glass of water, and she’d go upstairs, we’d go and check on her and she’d be fast asleep. This happened a few times before Christmas.

“We got to the other side of Christmas and it started to become more apparent that she would be complaining more often. She would go to bed at night then she would come down again and say my stomach really hurts. In the end it got to the point because she was complaining so much we took her to the doctors who then sent us off to A&E. All the signs were pointing to appendicitis because of her pain and where it was."

But he added: “They sat us down and told us that when the surgeon opened her up the appendix was absolutely beautiful, but there was a mass, and this mass was attached to her ovary, uterus, stomach, bowel.”

Olivia started chemotherapy treatment at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge but, as lockdown struck, restrictions in the hospital meant that only one parent was able to be with her at any one time.

The family were supported by their CLIC Sargent social worker Jess throughout their experience

CLIC Sargent’s Christmas necklace is available here for £19.99 with half of the proceeds going to CLIC Sargent.