We have an Ambassador for the Fund - please read on. My university education would have probably ended before it had really begun if it hadn’t been for the Emma Maltby Memorial Fund. I was first diagnosed with cancer in 2007 when I was in year 10. The second time I was diagnosed I was in my second semester of my first year at the University of Leeds. Most people assumed that I would just leave university and go back home to London for chemotherapy. When I told my doctor at the Royal Marsden Hospital that I wanted to have my chemotherapy in Leeds, he was very supportive of my decision. He highly praised the quality of medical care that St. James would provide me, and assured me that I would have all the education support I needed. On my first day of chemotherapy, I was feeling sick (already) and I was incredibly overwhelmed with everything that was going on around me, and I was told that I would spend the next five days in hospital hooked up to my chemo…. Karen came to see me a couple of hours into my first day in the day room of the TCT ward. She introduced herself and told me what her role was: she was a specialist learning support mentor from the Emma Maltby Memorial Fund and she was there to provide me with educational support, mediating between me, hospital, and university. This meant that she could help with issues as big as re-organising my exams so I could sit them in hospital, to making sure that there was a library assistant available to help me collect and carry library books. She came to see me on a regular basis, sometimes just to say hi and to see how I was doing. I think one of the nicest things about having Karen as my learning mentor is that she had only just graduated from Leeds herself (we both even studied the same degree!) and so she could actually relate to the various stresses of being a university student. She never wavered in her support and she never told me that something wasn’t possible, and for that reason I never felt at any point that it would just be better to drop out of university. I was very anxious in hospital on that first day, and Karen gave me some hope and something to focus my thoughts on that didn’t involve feeling sick or sorry for myself! I think the Emma Maltby Memorial Fund is an incredible charity for the educational support that it gives students of all ages. I think that I would have found coping with cancer a million times worse if I hadn’t been able to focus on my education. If I hadn’t been able to go to university on my good days, my life at the point would have literally consisted of chemotherapy, CT scans, x-rays, blood-tests, medication, and endless consultations. And luckily I’m not the only person who feels that EMMF is great! The University of Leeds’ Cancer Awareness Society now working closely with the charity to fundraise and raise awareness that cancer really can affect anybody – but having cancer doesn’t mean that you have to put your life on hold! Last year the Society held a stand-up comedy night and in a couple of weeks we’ll be doing a bucket collection in Leeds town centre. I graduated last summer with a 2:1 (Hon) degree in Classical Literature and English and I am now currently still at Leeds University studying for my Masters in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 10:59:37 +0000
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