For five long years my daughter Jade bravely fought a crippling brain tumour. She finally lost her battle in 2005 aged fourteen.
During this time we met many other children and their families dealing with similar life-threatening conditions with great
courage and determination. The effect on family life is devastating and only someone who has experienced this as I have
can really understand how difficult life becomes.
Throughout this time we did our best to keep Jade positive, focussed and as happy as possible to get her through her
illness. What really helped her were surprise holidays, weekend breaks and unexpected shopping trips to buy her something
nice. It helped her to forget the endless round of hospital visits and brought some normality back into our lives. It was so
lovely to see her happy.
Jade loved the band 'Blue' and was lucky enough to meet them thanks to a hospice organisation. They sat around her and
sang, she was smiling for days afterwards - it made such a difference to her life.
For the last two years of her life Jade was blind this was very hard for her and us to cope with. We found that facilities
for blind children were very limited at the time and this is one of the issues we hope to improve.
Jade herself felt very strongly that more could be done to help sick and blind children and even expressed a wish that I do
something to help them. It is from this wish that Jade's Rainbow Foundation has been born.