Tony's also set to start school this year. He's especially excited, because he'll be joining his older sisters, Tia and Tara. His cancer diagnosis changed their lives as well.

Tony was diagnosed with a blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) in December 2025. ALL starts in white blood cells, which play a crucial part in fighting off infections and keeping us healthy. Treatment involves killing cancerous blood cells so they can be replaced with healthy ones, but it means children are more exposed to dangerous infections. 

"After he was diagnosed, we had to focus on getting Tony strong enough to start treatment," says his dad, Indy. "For the first three weeks, we were in isolation in hospital. And we've all had to keep isolating at home since his treatment started. We’ve only ventured out or had friends and family over on the rare occasions his blood counts have recovered." 

Indy and Tony's mum Zara had felt that something wasn't quite right for a long time before Tony was diagnosed. In summer, a string of infections had the family going back and forth to the GP, and in November one of his nursery teachers noticed Tony had swollen glands. At that point, Indy and Zara began pushing for a blood test. Within half an hour of getting it, they found out Tony had leukaemia.

"It was a huge shock. Looking back on photos, you can see he’s really pale, but because we were looking at him every day, we couldn’t tell the difference," says Indy. "He didn’t have any other signs like bruising." 

Tony is receiving treatment through our ALLTogether-1 trial, which is testing whether more personalised treatment approaches can reduce side effects and help more children and young people recover. 

ALL treatment is broken down into phases. The early ones are more intense, as they're designed to clear the leukaemia cells from the body. They involve combinations of chemotherapies and steroids, which caused difficult side effects for Tony.  

"Tony had steroid-induced diabetes, so we had to manage his blood sugar levels with insulin injections. The steroids also made him really angry and hungry, but because of the diabetes we couldn’t give him what he wanted. That just made him even more upset. All he kept asking for was spaghetti and pasta." 

Thankfully, Tony's now in remission, with no signs of cancer in his body. He’s moved into the less intense maintenance phase of treatment, with oral chemotherapy he can take at home and less regular trips to the hospital to receive bigger doses and check his white blood cells.

Tests on Tony's ALL showed it had a lower risk of returning, so as part of ALLTogether-1, doctors are reducing certain aspects of his maintenance treatment to lower the risk of potential side effects. That means no more steroid pulses, and a chance to remove the long-term treatment tube (called a Hickman line) in Tony's chest.

“It will definitely make Tony more comfortable and feel more like a normal child again,” says Indy, who hopes this will be a new chapter for the whole family.

"Tia and Tara have found all the isolation hard. It can be harder to spread the attention equally with all the time in hospital.

"Now Tony’s really excited to join his sisters at school. He loves spending every minute with them – playing, dancing and going on adventures. It’s been so difficult for them seeing their brother go through all this, but they’re the main reason he’s kept his spirits high." 

As Franki and Tony take their first nervous steps through the primary school gates, Caitlin, 16, will be making the leap to college. 

Caitlin was diagnosed with stage 4 thyroid cancer when she was 13. It took a long time for her to get a diagnosis, and longer still for doctors to realise how difficult her cancer would be to treat. 

In the weeks after she was diagnosed, Caitlin had three surgeries. The first, in a local hospital, showed that the cancer was a lot bigger than the doctors had thought. 

"We were sent down to London for the second surgery, but it was worse than they expected as well, so I ended up having a third one because they didn't know just how bad it was."

What was supposed to be a five-day hospital stay became three weeks. Then Caitlin's mum Debbie had to buy a new rucksack to carry all her new medication home. At points in her treatment, she's been taking 57 tablets a day. 

That's only part of it. Caitlin's treatment also involved radioactive iodine (RAI), which, when swallowed, collects in the thyroid gland and kills nearby cancer cells. Cancer Research UK trials helped make RAI treatment safer and more precisely targeted, but radiation can still damage other cells – and not just Caitlin's.

"When I have my RAI treatment, I’m basically radioactive. For the first week, I'm shut in a lead-lined room, and no one can come in or out. I can’t have any visitors. My mum can only come in for 10 minutes at a time, and when she does, she’s behind a lead-lined screen."

That first week of RAI treatment is when the side effects are worst. The injections Caitlin gets to prepare her body make her knees hurt so much she can hardly climb stairs. Then the radiation brings a feeling like travel sickness that no medicine can suppress. "The only time I'm not ill in that first week is when I'm asleep, so I just lie down the whole time. The last time, all I ate was a couple of sticks of celery."

After that, things get a little better; Caitlin can leave the isolation room, but she still can't be too close to anyone in public for another two weeks. People who receive RAI treatment are usually radioactive for a year. Almost two years since her last dose, Caitlin still feels the travel sickness.

But it hasn't stopped her moving. Through it all, Caitlin has been volunteering – she's a BBC Make a Difference Award winner – completing her Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award and keeping up with school. In summer, despite everything, she passed all her GCSEs. She's still in treatment, and may need more surgeries or doses of radioactive iodine, but after all the exhaustion and isolation, she knows what she’s aiming for.

"When I’m older, post-treatment, I just want to travel the world. That's the only thing that's absolutely set in stone I have to do. I want to travel to as many different places as I can." 

As well as making RAI therapy safer and more precise, Cancer Research UK's work has helped ensure that people only receive it when it's most likely to help them. Most recently, our 'Iodine or Not' trial showed that patients aged 17 and above with low-risk thyroid cancer can safely avoid RAI.

It's an important step towards reducing hospital time and side effects, but there's still more work to be done to improve treatments for younger people.

Not long ago, 25-year-old Charlee opened up her old medical records. Twelve years earlier, on her year eight Easter holidays, she'd been diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a type of bone cancer, after finding a rock-hard lump wrapping around her right hip. Scans showed it was a 12cm tumour, and that clumps of cancer cells were spreading to her lungs. 

It all happened quickly. It all comes back quickly, too 

"From my first GP appointment to having treatment – my life changed within two weeks.

"I was only 13, so I didn’t have much knowledge about cancer and all of the amazing things they can do for it now. I remember sitting in my wardrobe for nearly eight hours because I thought it meant death." 

Looking through her records, Charlee began to piece it all back together. She saw she'd joined a Cancer Research UK trial called EURO-EWING 99, which we funded to improve Ewing sarcoma treatment. She had five days of intensive chemotherapy every three weeks, and then a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.  

Round by round, the treatment shrunk the tumour. But it also put Charlee's life on hold for more than a year. Her hair fell out due to the chemotherapy, and almost every time it seemed like she could head home for a break, she'd be rushed back to the ward with an infection.

"But the hospital was wonderful. They worked so hard and cared incredibly for me; they almost made it fun. In a strange way, I’m almost grateful for what I went through so young. I feel it’s shaped me into a very mature, outgoing woman today."

The Little Princess Trust gave Charlee a wig that made her feel so princess-like she "wore it for way longer" than she needed. But that wasn't what she really wanted to be.

"I grew up in a healthcare setting, constantly asking questions; it made me want to try and give back and help people like they helped me." 

Charlee couldn't return to school until year 10, so Bristol Children's Hospital, where she was treated, organised tutoring to help her keep up when she was away. When she came back, her teachers gave her special passes to step out of lessons when she needed a break. Young Lives vs Cancer also organised an assembly to help her classmates understand more about cancer in young people.  

"It all made me feel a lot better about coming back. I had been really anxious about it as I felt like I was a completely different person, especially as I was still wearing my wig."

Alongside the core subjects, Charlee did GCSEs in health and social care and geography. Then, in college, she specialised in beauty therapy. "That was also because of my experience as a cancer patient. The hospital used to find make-up and beauty days for me, and I remember coming back from one with a little gold Chanel eye shadow. My oncology consultant always commented on me wearing it! It was a little thing that made me feel beautiful again, even without my hair."

in 2019, Charlee joined a care home and began training to look after elderly people, many with dementia. "It feels amazing to give my patients the same amount of care and love I received 10 years ago," she says. "It's such a special job to me and I hope one day I can work within oncology."

The hospital is still part of Charlee's life today. She's been in remission since 2020, but she still has yearly oncology meetings and thyroid checks, as well as five-yearly tests on her heart and lung function.

They're not the only reminders of what she's been through. The side effects of the treatment mean it's very unlikely Charlee will be able to have children, which has been harder for her to deal with as she's got further into her 20s.

Charlee also has a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, but she's turned that into a reason to focus on her fitness. Next year, she plans to run a Race for Life.

"Despite everything, I try and remind myself that I am amazing. I am strong. I am healthy. And I am still here.

"My friends always get emotional at how positive I am about life and how I encourage them to be more grateful for the little things.

"I was once a poorly young girl stuck in a hospital while all my friends were out doing such basic things. I remind them to make the most of every day, because there will always be someone out there wishing they could be where we are."