Dear Jacob and Honor, please forgive me for being away from you…
Cancer mum’s poignant note to her children
SHE was forced to leave her baby daughter when she was only weeks old and feels she ‘doesn’t know her’.
Diagnosed with a form of blood cancer shortly after giving birth to her second child, Fiona Hart has spent months in hospital many miles from home receiving treatment and hoping that a stem cell donor will come forward to save her life.
So she wrote a heartfelt letter to sevenmonth- old Honor and her big brother Jacob, two, explaining why she cannot be with them and their father Simon at their home on the island of Islay.
Yesterday, the blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan released the letter in an attempt to highlight the need for people to join the organisation’s donor register,
In her letter, 32-year-old Mrs Hart, who is receiving chemotherapy at Glasgow’s Southern General hospital, pleads for her children to ‘forgive me for being away’.
She was diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoma only weeks after giving birth to Honor in September and had to travel 150 miles away for treatment.
In her letter written to her children to explain why she is not with them, Mrs Hart said: ‘It is so hard being away from you – I haven’t seen either of you for over two months and it devastates me every day.
‘Jacob, I feel I don’t know your sister, as she was only a few weeks old when I had to leave her, but I know whatever happens you will be the best big brother ever and that you’re even looking after Daddy and Granny and Grandpa back on the island.
‘A mother should be with her children and I hope that I can get that chance soon once we find our superhero donor who will bring our little family back together again.’
Honor is now being looked after by grandparents Donald and Linda McArthur on Islay, while Jacob stays with his paternal grandparents, who are also on the island.
Mr Hart, an ex-firefighter, is divid- ing his time between Islay and Glasgow.
The family are hoping that a stranger with a matching tissue type will be found.
Mrs Hart’s mother said her daughter was desperate to be back on Islay with her children.
She added: ‘I never thought I’d be looking after my daughter’s baby. All Fiona wants is to be at home with her kids – it’s all any mum would want.
‘People don’t realise how easy it is to give someone like Fiona that opportunity. All you need to do is join the Anthony Nolan register.’
Until her illness, Mrs Hart had
‘Devastates me every day’
been an active young woman who met her husband of six years at a martial arts club.
After discovering she was pregnant with her second child in January last year, Mrs Hart started experiencing worrying symptoms which doctors initially diagnosed as the side-effects of pregnancy.