Reuben’s Story
On 29th June 2023, Reuben, then aged 5, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and began treatment at the Royal Victoria Hospital for Sick Children. Thankfully, Reuben is now over a year post treatment and his father Jonathan and uncle Jake have taken on a mammoth challenge to raise vital funds in support of other families impacted by childhood cancer.
On Sunday 6th April, Jonathan and Jake will speed sit in every seat at Windsor Park Stadium, the home of Northern Ireland’s national team and Linfield FC. How many seats you ask? 18,000…in just one day!
They are raising money for Young Lives vs Cancer and Cancer Fund for Children who provided vital services to the family throughout their experience.
While Reuben was undergoing treatment Young Lives vs Cancer provided us with accommodation at Paul’s House in Belfast, which enabled our family to stay close. Cancer Fund for Children also provided support on the ward. Their Cancer Support Specialists visited Reuben and helped him pass the time during treatment.
During this time, we didn’t get a chance to spend a lot of time together as a family. Reuben and Oliver never really saw each other whilst Reuben was in hospital other than a brief few minutes when Leigha and I would swap over, so after treatment, it was nice to get a break to Cancer Fund for Children’s therapeutic centre, Daisy Lodge. We visited in October, a few weeks after Reuben finished treatment, and it was our first chance to come together as a family again. We went to Tollymore Forest and Newcastle and really enjoyed it. It was a way for us to escape from what we had gone through.
While we were going through treatment, I was told that a lot of the time the impact of the cancer experience doesn’t hit you until after and that’s so true. Now that Reuben is back at school and we’re getting back to some level of normality I’ve found that the reality of it all hits me out of the blue. I can be walking to work and just think “Oh my God, Reuben had cancer.”
We wanted to do something that would provide support to families who are going through a similar situation to us. My brother in law, Jake and I are big football fans and Reuben is starting to get into it now, so we’re taking on the challenge of speed sitting in every seat in Windsor Park.
We will be starting this challenge at 8.30am on Sunday 6th April and it will take us roughly 10-12 hours to finish it. It’s going to be tough, but we’re excited to give back to the charities that supported us.
Jonathan, Reuben's dad
