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Meet our Little Stars

Meet some of our Little Stars from previous years

SAM NEALE

Sam, from Mountain Ash in south Wales, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukaemia in May 2005.

Sam’s parents, who both work as Senior Biomedical Scientists at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, had started noticing Sam was often really tired and was off his food during April.

Following a series of blood tests, they went to a leukaemia clinic in Cardiff, where the diagnosis was confirmed and he began three years of chemotherapy treatment almost immediately.

He completed his treatment in August 2008 and the family celebrated this landmark with a holiday in Spain.

Sam, 14, was nominated for a Little Star Award in 2007 by his best friend Alex, who said he was “an absolutely awesome friend” and “the bravest person he knew”.

Sam’s mum Shan said: “I think the Little Star Awards are a great idea – it is really uplifting for the child to see that it is not all doom and gloom and that other people recognise what they are going through.”

ISLA MCCARTHY

Nine-year-old Isla, from Plymouth, was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer in September 2002.

She was only three-and-a-half when she was first diagnosed with pleural pulmonary blastoma and had to have an operation to remove the tumour and a year of chemotherapy, as well as a further operation to remove a benign cyst.

She was presented with a Little Star award in 2003, and she pressed the starting horn to set thousands of women off at Race for Life in Plymouth in 2004.

But in 2008, she went one better, completing the 5k course alongside her mum Hayley to raise funds for Cancer Research UK, on top of other fundraising and awareness work.

Hayley said Isla had helped raise around £5,000 for cancer charities in the years since she was diagnosed.

“Isla has a massive heart and she just wants to make other children better – I don’t think she has any concept of the money that’s raised – to her, she just knows it helps in some way,” she said.