Press release
5 March 2025
A Paediatric Oncology nurse working back on the ward that looked after her when she had leukaemia as a child is to run this year’s TTP Cambridge Half Marathon to raise awareness of the charity that raises funds for the hospital where she now works.
Molly Shelley, 22, a paediatric oncology nurse at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) when she was just three years old.
Diagnosed in the May of 2006, her parents had taken her to the GP and A&E on many occasions over a period of several months trying to work out what was wrong with her after the toddler started suffering from unexplained symptoms including leg pain, uncontrollable high temperatures and constant ear infections.
Molly would also bruise really easily and had all the typical rashes as well as a distended stomach prior to treatment.
Tests revealed Molly (pictured right with her sister, Daisy) had 95% leukaemia cells in her bone marrow so underwent an intense programme of six weeks of aggressive chemotherapy, which luckily put her into remission. After that she was put on a two-year treatment plan consisting of ongoing chemotherapy, lumbar punctures and blood transfusions before being given the all-clear, aged five.
Asked what she remembers, Molly said: “I’m very grateful and lucky to say that I only have positive memories of what was obviously, a very difficult time. So I feel really grateful for that.”
“The limited memories I do have are of the nurses and my time on the ward – but as a kid, not as a poorly patient. Those memories are of being with my nurses or playing with them. I remember being in my hospital bed one time with my dad, watching a film, and the nurse came in to take a blood test and I just stuck my arm out. They didn’t have to say a word.”
Molly said it was her experience as a child which pushed her into the nursing profession – “My mum always said it was weird that I felt so comfortable in a hospital. Now I couldn’t even imagine myself doing another job.”
Having graduated from University in December, Molly interviewed for her current role in January. Her interviewer was the ward manager when Molly was being treated for Leukaemia and Molly says she now knows four members of staff who were working on the ward when she was a child.
“I definitely wouldn’t be nursing now it if wasn’t for me having leukaemia as a child,” she said. “But I see it as a positive as it has made me who I am today. It’s driven me into this career and made me do things I wouldn’t have done otherwise.”
“Obviously it affected my parents a lot more than me and now when I am on the ward I think more about my parents in that situation than myself.”
“If I’m speaking to the families, I am always thinking about how I interact with the parents. I just think, ‘how would I want my parents to have received this?’ and that’s how I go about it.”
Molly’s Leukaemia obviously had a a big impact on all her family. Her dad, Paul, had to give up his job at the time to care for Molly; her mum, Alison, who works in HR, went to work in the NHS after Molly’s recovery and now works for a genomics company, and sister Daisy, now studies BioMed science.
Molly is running the London Marathon in April, raising money for Leukaemia UK and Blood Cancer UK, who the family raised money for 20 years ago.
She opted to run the Cambridge Half Marathon for Addenbrooke’s official charity, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), after getting her place in the ballot in this year’s half and said: “I just knew as soon as I got the place it would be so special to me to be running around the city that we are based in and to be able to run for the charity of the hospital I was a patient in. It feels very special and fitting – a full-circle kind of moment because 20 years ago I was a patient on the ward I am now a nurse on.”
Molly has decided to share her story now to help other families going through the same thing.
“The reason I am sharing my story now is I just hope to show parents that me having Leukaemia shows I am living proof that there is light at the end of what can be a very dark tunnel. I just want to give them hope.”
Asked how she finds working with kids, she said: “Kids are just so resilient, you wouldn’t know they were unwell. They all have a smile on their face, they laugh with you, dance with you, they are just incredible. They are living life to the best of their ability.”
She said ward staff organise a mini disco in the corridors once a week to get everyone together and said it was one such special moment that really hit home with her.
“I’d come out of the staff room and saw all the kids had come out of their rooms and the staff had put on a bit of a mini disco in the corridor of the ward. They were all stood there with their drip stands and pumps, with all their wires and everything, and the staff were dancing with them. There was music on a speaker and a little disco ball and some lights and they were all stood in a circle holding hands, dancing – the parents, kids and staff. And it’s in that split second where you are like, ‘This is what it is all about. This is why I do this job. The kids are just incredible.”
If you have been inspired by Molly’s story and would like to make a donation to ACT, please click here.
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