Battling Babs beats cancer four times

When Emma Wilson’s mum beat cancer four times she decided she wanted to do something to thank the hospital that saved her life.

And so Emma, 50, from Tadcaster decided to shave all her hair off in honour of her mum Barbara.

Emma is so grateful for the care her mum has received at Leeds Teaching Hospitals she decided to shave her head to raise funds for hospital charity Leeds Cares, raising more than £2,000.

“My hair is a really important part of my identity and means a lot to me, so shaving it off was a really scary prospect – but I always wondered what it might look like!”

Barbara, known as ‘Babs’, was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1982 when Emma was just 12 years old. At the time the family lived in Germany, as Emma’s dad John was working for the Royal Air Force. Babs travelled alone to a London hospital for four months of intense radiotherapy treatment. The family then returned to UK, where they settled in Yorkshire.

Babs lived cancer-free until 2014 when she discovered a lump on her tongue, which turned out to be oral cancer. She had surgery to remove the tumour in May 2014 and did not need any further treatment.

Since then, Babs has fought cancer twice more, lung cancer in September 2014 and then the following year kidney cancer. She had both tumours surgically removed. Despite everything she has been through, Babs continued to work part-time at the British Library until she was 72 years old.

Then in 2019 her life changed dramatically, when doctors discovered she had a perforated bowel. Yet again, doctors at Leeds Teaching Hospitals saved Babs’s life.

“Last year was a really scary experience, we didn’t know what was happening to mum. She had lost so mum weight and there was a point just before Christmas that I really didn’t think she was going to make it; her recovery has been far from easy – but mum is a fighter,” says Emma.

“Not only did the hospital staff keep Mum going at her lowest, but the support and kindness they showed the whole family through some extremely dark days will never be forgotten.”

After months in and out of hospital, Babs was finally able to return home to her family in January. Emma and her siblings have become full-time carers for their mum. who is high risk during Covid-19.

www.leeds-cares.org

Emma’s fundraising page is still open at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/emma-wilson161