It has become customary to ring a bell to signal the end of a cancer journey. Seven-year-old Sarah rang the biggest bell she could find – at her local church – to mark the end of two and a half years of treatment.
Sarah was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia on her birthday in 2021. Her diagnosis, in December of that year, came after weeks of tests to discover the cause of her flu-like symptoms. She started treatment immediately.
Her mother Michelle said: “It has been a long road, two and a half years of intensive chemotherapy. Sarah is the toughest, bravest, little girl I know and she loves her brother more than she does herself. She is a little miracle.
“When her treatment ended I said to Sarah ‘what do you want from ringing the bell’ and she said she wanted everyone who hears it to do something kind for someone else. We could not think of a better way to mark its end.”
Michelle originally asked the vicar the Revd Maria Jukes if she could arrange for the bells to be rung for Sarah. But Maria was determined to do better than that and invited the whole family to church to watch Sarah ring the bells herself. Michelle set about telling all Sarah’s friends at school, Beavers and their local community to listen out for the bells at All Saints in Faringdon on 3 May and to do something kind for someone when they heard them.
She added: “So many people showed up at the church, and having the bell ringers there, saying ‘well done’ was absolutely amazing. I wish more people would turn to the church when they’d like to celebrate. I really believe Sarah is a little miracle. An answer to prayer.”
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