Kayleigh's Story

In July 2025 Kayleigh was home from University for the summer. But on July 18th she woke up with a lingering pain in her chest and unable to breathe, it wasn’t asthma but she didn’t know what it could be.

Watching Kayleigh hooked up to machines, oxygen and countless wires and beeps. Helpless but hopeful, we waited for news. At the end of a long day a really lovely consultant came to chat to us. She said that they’d like to keep Kayleigh in to monitor her and to have a biopsy on the Monday as they suspected Lymphoma. In addition she had 4.5 litres of fluid around her lungs.

Kayleigh was moved to another ward. Her oxygen dependency increased and she just looked so poorly. They decided to extract some of the fluid from around her lungs to ease the pressure.

Then, we saw the oncologist who explained to us that the biopsy results usually take months, but she had managed to get an initial result to get Kayleigh to the right ward. Lymphoma.

Kayleigh had cancer, High grade Diffuse B Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and needed Chemotherapy asap. No time to speak to the fertility team or have eggs harvested.

The lymphoma was aggressive and progressive. It needed treating right away.

The next 3 weeks consisted of visits from consultants, cancer nurses, wig ladies, physio, Occupational health, friends and family. University had to be deferred. We had to tell her 3 younger sisters that she had cancer. How do we even do that? Throughout it all, we tried to retain some normality however it was the start of the summer holidays and Kayleigh’s dad needed to go to work to support the family financially and I was staying in with Kayleigh. We had no family so her 3 sisters pulled together to get through.

Chemo started –R-CHOP (nicknamed The red devil) Kayleigh reacted to it initially, so they had to infuse over 2 days. Then, the back pain caused by injections to increase her blood cells. The evenings and nights seemed to be the worse. Kayleigh would deteriate during the night then pick up during the day.

The Drs were all debating what to do next. The fluid around her lungs was seriously affecting her breathing but the cancer was causing the fluid so chemo needed to carry on. After a long 3 weeks – finally off oxygen, Kayleigh came home!

Finally, home, Kayleigh had a further 5 rounds of chemo. Her hair started falling out within days of the first chemo, closely followed by her eyelashes and eyebrows. She rocked it though – like the Boss she is!

Halfway through the chemo treatment, Kayleigh had a routine PET scan to see how the treatment was going. We had hoped it was working but were blown away to discover that Kayleigh was in remission! Treatment had to continue though to make sure any new cells were cancer free. A repeat scan after 6 rounds of Chemo and she was still in remission. Brilliant! We were so proud of Kayleigh.

3 months on and Kayleigh is starting to plan to go back to uni in September. She’s making plans to hopefully go to Camp Canada in the Summer of 2027 and her hair is starting to grow back. She’s been through the worst that cancer could throw at her and after 6 rounds of chemo she is now in remission. We couldn’t be prouder.

Wed like to thank Ben Saunders Foundation for this much need break away.