10 Jul 2025

Hospital friendship group carries little Lacie through her treatment

“Without my new friends I don’t know how I would have coped, and I can’t imagine them not being in my life.” 

Lacie with her parents

An extraordinary bond has developed between a group of parents whose children are all going through leukaemia treatment on the same ward of a Welsh Hospital. Jess John credits the group with getting her through the darkest times of her daughter Lacie’s illness, and magically the children have formed lasting friendships too.

Lacie started to show symptoms in 2022 when the four-year-old become repeatedly ill.

“Lacie constantly had colds, sickness bugs, fatigue, and then chicken pox,” said Jess, 36, who works as a primary school teacher. “She was always tired and complaining her legs were hurting. I sought medical advice numerous times over about seven months but would be sent home being told it was viral or just a harmless cold.

“Three weeks before Lacie was diagnosed, she suddenly developed a lump on the right side of her neck  – it was huge, about 7cm wide by 3cm long. I rung the out-of-hours doctor who told us to go straight to the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend where Lacie was immediately admitted. She had scans and blood tests and they kept her in for a week. But there was no treatment and all they could say was it was a build-up of dead tissue. We never found out what it was. But the doctors now say the reason her leukaemia wasn’t coming up in her blood tests at that point was it was still in her bone marrow.

“Another week went by with Lacie again complaining of sore legs, refusing to walk and being poorly. Then she developed a temperature of 39.9 degrees so I took her back to the GP where they said give Calpol and said keep an eye on her for a couple of days. 48 hours later her temperature was 40.1 and she had sickness and diarrhoea so we went back to the GP. We were readmitted to the hospital where they found her liver and spleen were enlarged and her blood tests now showed abnormalities.”

Lacie during her treatment

Doctors told Jess and husband Grant that they thought Lacie has blood cancer but they would need to confirm the diagnosis with a specialist. The next day, Friday 14th April 2023, Lacie and her parents were transferred by ambulance to Noah’s Ark Children’s hospital in Cardiff, where they were given a private room on Rainbow Ward.

“They took a blood sample and within an hour a consultant came and gave us the devastating news that Lacie had B-Cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). We were of course heart broken, but slightly in denial. We hoped that the diagnosis was wrong and there was a chance our girl didn’t have cancer. When we were told the diagnosis was correct our worlds were shattered, we both cried and couldn’t believe what we were hearing. I remember feeling numb and after that it is a bit of a blur as we had a lot of information thrown at us with big decisions to be made and all this unknown terminology being used.”

Two days later Lacie was given an operation to insert a port in her chest to administer her chemotherapy drugs.

Lacie with Betsy and her other friends

“We stayed in hospital for eight days and Lacie was given regular chemotherapy. Lacie seemed well during the treatment which we were grateful for, but we soon found out from weekly bone marrow samples that the chemo wasn’t working as well as needed to move on to the next stage of the treatment. With this Lacie moved from Regimen A to a more intense treatment plan, Regimen C.”

Across the next six months Jess and Grant had periodic meetings with doctors who, despite all the little girl was going through, told them the heartbreaking news that it wasn’t working. It was during this period that a life-changing friendship was struck up.

“Betsy is in the same school as Lacie but two years above. I got to know her mum Charlotte in the hospital after another parent at the school put us together realising we were both going through the same thing. We’ve become inseparable. The girls immediately hit it off and we discovered they live round the corner from us. I don’t know what I would have done without her support all the way through.”

Meanwhile Lacie’s treatment was still not working and eventually Jess and Grant were told the doctors wanted to try and new treatment, which was not yet routinely provided on the NHS, a drug called Blinatumomab.

“Our consultant applied for funding of £59,000 for us to have the treatment which thankfully was granted. Lacie then had another operation which inserted a PICC line into her forearm where the drug would be administered 24 hours a day for a four-week cycle from a large backpack which was powered by a battery and that she had to wear it all the time. And she needed two of these cycles. All of this was difficult and each meeting would break our hearts even more even though we didn’t think our hearts could break anymore.

“Thankfully the Blinatumomab worked after the second cycle and finally we could move on to the next stage. Lacie was very poorly and was admitted to hospital almost weekly. She wasn’t eating so she had a naso-gastric tube to help her gain weight. This broke me even more as Lacie hated the tube and it made her sick. The whole year was tough in different ways – you would think it can’t get any worse and then it would.”

Lacie with her friends and family

Fortunately, Lacie continued to recover and is now in the maintenance phase of her treatment. She goes to hospital once a month for intravenous chemotherapy and again every 12 weeks for a lumbar puncture. She also takes chemotherapy tablets every day.

And Jess and Lacie’s crucial support network, while still focused around Charlotte and Betsy, has expanded. Two little boys who were all diagnosed within the same period of time have formed a close bond after repeatedly meeting on the wards. And their parents, in particularly their mums, are now firm friends.

“Now we’re all on a WhatsApp group and we talk without fail every single day and often meet up outside of the hospital.”

Happily Lacie is back at school and soaring with her reading and maths skills, which Jess puts down to her school sending a teacher to their home for a few hours a week during the year she was off. The family also had a play therapist and school time in the hospital.

“Our whole world was turned upside down and everything came to a stop especially for me. My husband Grant remained working as aircraft engineer after the first eight days we both spent in hospital with her. But I stayed home

Lacie with her best friend Betsy and a therapy dog

with Lacie for 14 months as she needed around the clock care. For me to be able to cope with everything I had to take control of the care. It was very lonely for me at times.

“We’re looking ahead to Lacie finishing her treatment, being in remission and in November 2025 ringing her bell. Betsy is scheduled to finish in May. Lacie has a list of things she would like after that: to go to Tenerife, have a pet rabbit, get her ears pierced and to start swimming lessons! We more than anything pray for her to remain healthy and cancer free and to stay as sassy and amazing as she is now.

“My old friends have been there for me but they don’t fully understand. If I’m having a hard day I can say to the WhatsApp group Lacie’s neutrophils are up and I’m struggling and they know exactly what to say to help. It’s a deeper level of support. Charlotte is special of course because Lacie and Betsy were diagnosed within three weeks of each other and are so close. The girls call each other sisters and even have their bloods done together by the community nurse at the school. Without my new friends I don’t know how I would have coped, and I can’t imagine them not being in my life.”