Friends rally round for battling student Eloise

Eloise May has been diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma and is undergoing punishing bouts of chemotherapy treatment in Liverpool where she is studying at John Moores University.

The 20 year-old has written a no-holds-barred, raw and sometimes funny first person blog of her experiences since she was diagnosed in February this year, after first complaining of pains in her right arm and chest. It has received thousands of hits and her Tik-Tok link over 100,000 likes.

An extract from it reads: "Obviously as well being told I had stage four cancer, being told it had spread to the bone marrow in my spine was pretty surreal as well, I just laughed when the doctor told me, it obviously wasn't funny but I literally couldn't bring myself to react differently I was just in so much shock.

"When I phoned my dad and my grandma and told them and my friends they all decided that they would come and see me that evening and made me feel like I was the luckiest girl in the world, to have them come to the hospital at such short notice."

Eloise, who attended Brown Clee CE Primary and Bridgnorth Endowed School, has had to temporarily defer her sports science degree while she receives treatment at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool, a specialist cancer treatment centre which only opened last year.

A number of Eloise's friends have shaved some of their hair off in support of her and donated it to the Little Princess Trust, which takes the donations and creates wigs for children in need. They are also crowdfunding to help the family with costs associated with the treatment

Two other events including a wheels@ The Weekend event and a dog show have been organised in the Ditton Priors and Farlow and Oreton area to raise money for Young Lives Versus Cancer.

Although lymphoma is a cancer that responds well to chemotherapy, Eloise's mother, Sacha, said the treatment is tough on someone who was enjoying university life like any 20-year-old would but also loved coming back to see family and friends in the close-knit Shropshire community.

She said: "Eloise is very brave and is getting through the treatment but there are times when she is down which is inevitable. She is an inspiration through her blog really to anyone else who is going through it because it really is an emotional but real account.

"She is very grateful for the support of her close friends both at university and of the people in Ditton Priors - this is a small place where everyone supports each other and that can be seen from the events that have been planned to help support Eloise and the associated charities - it is heart warming to see."

To support Eloise, you can visit justgiving and search 'sockandbucket' or 'izzy-hubery'.