Charlotte What cancer were you diagnosed with? Hodgkin's lymphoma What age were you diagnosed? 34 What has helped you to thrive? What has helped me thrive - so much love and support from family and friends; my children - who are great distractions and help me live in the moment, as they do; and the Lymphoma and Transplant teams at Southampton who I have absolute faith in. I've also made an amazing friend, Vicky, who my original consultant put me in touch with as she was diagnosed with HL when pregnant shortly after me. Our 'journeys' have been spookily similar and we ended up having our transplants in Southampton at the same time. Charlotte's Story I was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin's lymphoma in March 2016 when pregnant. I went through chemo during pregnancy, had a healthy daughter in November 2016 but my disease had progressed. I had multiple further chemos and four rounds of radiotherapy with mixed results and eventual progression which made me seriously ill and in unbearable pain by December 2017 as it had spread to my bones, lungs and abdomen. As a last resort, we self-funded immunotherapy. To everyone's surprise this worked well enough to enable me to go ahead with a donor stem cell transplant in June 2018. The process was gruelling, involving a nine-week stay in hospital, followed by a six-week stay earlier this year for transplant-induced Graft Versus Host disease. Since then life has been on the up and I'm finally able to be full-time mum to my children - the last six months have been like heaven after so much heartache and pain. I'm in remission and feeling well but left with fatigue, symptoms of early menopause, osteoperosis and PTSD. READ MORE OF CHARLOTTE'S STORY HERE Manage Cookie Preferences