Nurse Molly runs TTP Cambridge Half Marathon in aid of Addenbrooke’s, where she was treated for leukaemia as a child

When 22-year-old Molly Shelley tied up her shoelaces for today’s TTP Cambridge Half Marathon, it was a ‘full circle moment’ two decades in the making.

For Molly is a paediatric oncology nurse working on the Addenbrooke’s ward that looked after her when she had leukaemia as a child – and she is running the 13.1-mile course to raise awareness and funds for the charity that supports the hospital where she now works.

She was diagnosed in May 2006 at the age of just three with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Her parents had taken her to the GP and A&E on many occasions over a period of months trying to work out what was wrong after Molly began suffering from unexplained symptoms, including leg pain, uncontrollable high temperatures and constant ear infections.

Molly bruised really easily and had rashes and a distended stomach prior to treatment.

Tests revealed she had 95 per cent leukaemia cells in her bone marrow.

She underwent an intensive six-week programme of aggressive chemotherapy, which put her into remission. Then she was put on a two-year treatment plan of chemotherapy, lumbar punctures and blood transfusions before being given the all-clear at age five.

“I’m very grateful and lucky to say that I only have positive memories of what was obviously a very difficult time,” says Molly. “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.”

The experience led her to pursue nursing.

“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,” she says.

After graduating from university in December, Molly was interviewed for her role in January by the ward manager who was there when she was treated for leukaemia.

Molly knows four members of staff who were working on the ward when she was a child.

“I definitely wouldn’t be nursing now if it wasn’t for me having leukaemia as a child. 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,” she says. “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.”

Molly’s dad, Paul, gave up his job to care for Molly, while her mum, Alison, who works in HR, went to work in the NHS after Molly’s recovery and now works for a genomics company. Her sister Daisy now studies biomedical science.

Molly will raise money for Leukaemia UK and Blood Cancer UK, when she runs the London Marathon in April. It was the charity her family supported when Molly was ill.

For the Cambridge Half Marathon, she will support Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), the hospital’s official charity.

“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.

“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.

“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 was touched to learn how ward staff organise a mini-disco once a week.

“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.’”

Visit act4addenbrookes.org.uk/donate.