The Maria Watt Be The Change Award 2025 - Kimberley Hattersley - Barton
September 10, 2025 | Time: | Location: | Category: News
My Life With The Ribbon…
"My Life With The Ribbon…You never know what life can throw at you, the challenges you may have to face, the adaptions you have to make, and then the choices you then have to bravely take a step at a time with in order to keep moving forward. One thing I have to remind myself of and relearn every time is how your body is magic. It heals you over and over and can miraculously still find ways to live even when living without what has been taken from you.
To summarise 27 years of my life is a bit of a challenge in itself, and after beating my own personal best of appointments last year that totalled to 72, it's fair to say l'm still in the platinum NHS loyalty card club. But for anyone who doesn't know me personally, or isn't fully aware of my series of unfortunate health events, this is my story so far of my life with the ribbon.At the age of 13 months old I was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer on my bladder called Rhabdomyosarcoma; a treatment of multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and radiotherapy has left me with many lifelong late effects that I still live with now; including kidney, ovarian and heart failure.
Unfortunately, just after | turned 18, I was diagnosed and treated for a tongue cancer - Squamous Cell Carcinoma. I had to undergo a surgery which removed part of the back of my tongue, a neck dissection surgery as well as 6 and a half weeks of an intense course of radiotherapy treatment. During this 6 month period of the first tongue cancer diagnosis, I was collecting Beads of Courage. In that short period of time I collected just short of 700 beads, and each one of those represents something significant in that diagnosis journey, whether it be a clinic, a blood test, a surgery or just getting through a really bumpy day.
I was at nearly 4 years remission when I was re-diagnosed again with a second tongue cancer during the peak of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Luckily (if you can call a hat trick diagnosis lucky!) it was the earliest stage and I only required surgery again to my tongue and neck without further treatment.
I remained in remission until the summer of 2022, when it was confirmed I had a 4th cancer diagnosis of Papillary Thyroid cancer, and in December that year I had my thyroid completely removed as well as a third neck dissection surgery. As I mentioned at the start with my childhood cancer treatment, I live with many late effects which affect how I feel and my everyday lifestyle.
Sadly, last August (2024), the inevitable day of having to start dialysis treatment for my kidney failure condition hit unexpectedly. This is now what I call my part time job and I have to spend 3 half days a week at the hospital on the dialysis machine, which is what I like to call a blood washing machine. Again, dialysis has been a huge life adaption, but it wasn't going to be the only plot twist to this last year. On the 7th January 2025 I had another huge surgery which removed the whole back third of my tongue and was replaced with areas of an artificial skin graft. After all of my previous tongue removal surgeries, I was so scared of what I may sound like and the further lifestyle adaptions I would have to make and face during this recovery. My head and neck team have supported me ever since meeting them all 9 years ago, and I truly can't thank them enough for their holistic support and approaches to my care. Not only has this team saved my life multiple times, they have enabled me to keep moving forward with it.
I realise I'm in a very fortunate and miraculous position to be able to do and love all that I do. That's why I wanted to raise as much money as possible at my second ‘Life With The Ribbon: Charity Gala’ earlier this year to support my chosen charities (including Beads of Courage), and enable them to continue their amazing work to support other children and young people like me going through life threatening conditions."
We are so proud of Kimberley and everything that she has achieved; we cannot wait to see what else Kimberley has planned for the future!
