Poppy's Story

Until March 2025, Poppy was ordinary 13 year old girl, she played sport everyday, was healthy and had 100% attendance at school.

Poppy started complaining of a sore hip back in around November 2024, but it was very on and off, it would hurt for a day or so and then be completely fine for weeks, therefore we put it down to a sporting injury.

In January 2025 the pain was getting more regular so we took her to the GP who referred her to physio and did some blood tests. A few days later Poppy was in severe pain so we took her to A&E, where she was given an xray.

The A&E doctor said he couldn’t see anything and assured us there was nothing major and told us to go back to our GP.

The blood tests however did show some inflammation, and the xray was finally reviewed by the official radiographers and an MRI organised. A week later following the MRI This we were shepherded into a small room and told the devastating news that Poppy had Ewing’s Sarcoma - a very rare form of bone cancer.

Poppy has undergone 14 rounds of chemotherapy, 6 weeks of Proton Beam Therapy in London and major surgery to remove the tumour and a large portion of her pelvis - spending a month in hospital in Birmingham.

Poppy is currently on crutches and in remission, we remain quietly hopeful for the future but are taking it each day as it comes - we know her journey will continue to be challenging.

Having been completely splintered as a family we are so very thankful to the Ben Saunders Foundation for this time away together.