Dying mum, 37, writes heartbreaking Christmas cards for her kids to read after she dies
Laura Atkinson, 37, was told by doctors last year there was nothing more they can do so she's started preparing ways to be a part of her kids’ lives once she’s gone.
The married mum-of-two was diagnosed with stage four Ocular Uveal Melanoma in 2014 after she went for a routine eye test.
Despite having an operation to remove the tumour, while she was pregnant with son Dylan, Laura’s cancer spread to her liver.
The 37-year-old, from Warrington, Cheshire is now trying to make the most of the time she has left with Faye, six, and three-year-old Dylan.
Laura said: “While I’m still able to I want to make mind memories and do nice things that they can remember.
“When it comes to when I’m out of options, that is when I want to do the memory bears and write cards for birthdays and Christmas.
“I have to think about what will happen when I’m not there."
The stay-at-home mum has started pioneering treatment at Spire Southampton Hospital and hopes to take Dylan to his first day of school next September.
Laura is fundraising £80,000 on GoFundMe for the final two cycles of the pioneering treatment, which costs £40,000 per cycle, after funding two herself.
Speaking about her diagnosis, Laura said: “When I was initially diagnosed, it was completely blind siding.
“I wasn’t having symptoms, so it totally came out of the blue.”
Despite having emergency surgery while she was pregnant, Laura was given the devastating news shortly before Dylan’s birth that the tumour would likely return.
To add to the nightmare, Dylan had to have open heart surgery only two weeks after being born.
She said: “It was one nightmare after another. I was convincing myself that he’d got it because of me.
“I felt like the unluckiest person in the world.”
Dylan made a full recovery and is now a happy and healthy child, but in August 2017, the family got more devastating news while on a family holiday.
Laura was called in by doctors following a routine scan and exploratory surgery and told they were out of options.
She said: “It was just an awful moment. I was devastated. I knew in my gut that it was cancer. It was just horrendous.
“It’s indescribable. I was never naive to think it would come back but I never thought it would come back so quickly.”
Laura said that since then she’s focused on trying to spend as much time as possible with Dylan and Faye and her husband Keith, 46.
She said: “We took the kids to Disneyland Paris which was something Faye was desperate to do.
“While I was feeling OK in February we went. It was amazing. She loved it which was the aim of that kind of memory making.
“Dylan is too young to understand but I talk to Faye about it.
“I say I have something growing in my tummy. She doesn’t know the ultimate ending, she doesn’t need to know that yet."
Despite her anger, Laura hopes that her children will understand how hard she has fought to stay alive.
She said: “I was really angry at the start – not for me, but for the kids.
“I was so angry that this was happening to them, I don’t understand why that has to happen to them.
“It’s a terrible thing that will happen to them.
“I never wanted to go, that is what I hope they understand. I don’t want them to be angry with me.
“I just hope they won’t be cross and that this was never the way I wanted it to turn out.
“I thought I’d be stood by their side for the next 40 or 50 years, and would never leave them so young."
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