Nurse Karen Hartley has been a hero to children that suffer from cancer. She has helped so many children around Medway and around the area, that her patients have crowned her a hero.
At the age of 57, Karen helps children with cancer that are at the Medway Maritime Hospital, Gillingham. But she can do that with the donations that have been gathered from the community.
The CLIC Sargent helps children and donates to families that have children with cancer. For example, Callum Tolley, who is three years old and lives in Cheshire was diagnosed with leukemia since when he was only a few weeks old.
Callum’s cancer came back after doctors said that he was in remission.
CLIC – Real Life Heroes
A total of 51 nurses from worldwide have traveled to the kids’ homes to give them medications and chemotherapy, saving many lives in the outpatient units.
Nurses like Karen have saved children’s lives, be it on Christmas Day or any other event. Karen looks after 35 children and stands by their sides from the day the kids are diagnosed until the of end of the treatments.
They stay by the families’ side whenever they need medical and moral support. Karen said that ‘we’re a familiar face for the children and their families. We offer a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear’.
Reuben Virdee started chemotherapy last year, a week before Christmas. Another child, Lucas Harry, who’s five years old, was diagnosed with leukemia in July, 2015. Karen has taken care of them and each time she visited Harry to give him his treatment, he was awarded with a bead for courage.
Harry loves it when Karen visits him, because he said that ‘she gives me stickers and beads after giving me my medicine and makes me laugh.
Karen, along other nurses bring hope to families that are in this tragic situation. Harry’s father, Gary, admitted that they would be ‘be lost without Karen’.
Surrounded by the hardship of life, these families have found a real hero who makes a difference.
