‘Bucket list’ girl’s dying wishes are granted

A 15-YEAR-OLD cancer sufferer has thanked people around the world for helping to fulfil her ‘bucket list’ of things she wants to do before she dies.

This week Alice Pyne, of Ulverston, Cumbria, created an internet blog called Alice’s Bucket List in which she described how she has been fighting cancer for the last four years.

She revealed her latest hospital scans showed Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a cancer of the white blood cells — was spreading through her body and that her mother had encouraged her to create a wish list.

Her appeal led to a flood of offers as her webpage became an internet hit with Twitter followers, as it became one of the most talked about subjects worldwide. Top of the schoolgirl’s list was to ‘make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor’.

Other wishes were to swim with sharks, to have a purple Apple iPad, to meet Take That and ‘to have my hair done if they can do anything with it’.

In a fresh post yesterday on her website — www.alicepyne.blogspot.com — she said most of her ambitions were now set to be achieved. She wrote: “Now for my mega exciting news. I’m off to see Take That this weekend, can you believe it? I am so excited and really can’t wait, I just hope that I don’t get ill or something daft. I’ve lived in PJs for about a year so mum is going to town to buy some things to bring back for me to try.”

She added: “It also looks like the other things I wished to do are being organised so thank you to everyone for that. I feel a very lucky girl. PS Anyone got hints for tweeting because we don’t know what we’re doing LOL.”

A male bone marrow donor in his 20s was found as a match for Alice last year but doctors at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool said chemotherapy treatment had not been successful enough to allow the transplant to go ahead.

On Monday, Alice wrote: “Hi, I’m 15 years old and live with my parents and sister in Ulverston. I’ve been fighting cancer for almost four years and now I know that the cancer is gaining on me and it doesn’t look like I’m going to win this one.”

Alice lives with her parents, Simon and Vicky, and sister, Milly, 12, who received a Children of Courage award in 2007 for her own battle with a genetic bone disorder called Crouzon syndrome.

Labelling herself a “full-time cancer fighter”, Alice wrote on her introductory blog: “Most of you know that my scan at Alder Hey wasn’t very good and that the cancer is now spreading through my body.

“It’s a pain because there’s so much stuff that I still want to do. I guess that my particular cancer is made of strong stuff (which is hard because I know I gave it my all and I’m strong and determined too).

“Anyway, mum always tells me that life is what we make of it and so I’m going to make the best of what I have and because there were so many things I still wanted to do, mum suggested that I turn my ideas into a bucket list. I’ve not quite finished it yet, as I keep remembering other bits, so I might add things to it as I go along.

“I’m not expecting to do everything on it. Some of the things are just not going to happen because I can’t even leave the country now (I’m too much of a risk), but they’re on there, because they were on my ‘to do’ list at some point.”

In response to thousands of emails, she posted yesterday: “Oh dear and I thought that I was just doing a little blog for a few friends! Thank you so much for all your lovely messages to me. I don’t sleep very well and I sat up all night reading them as they came in from all over the planet, every single one, and they have made me smile so much so that is a good thing.”

Alice had said she was unable to watch her favourite band, Take That, this weekend because she was not well enough to cope with sitting among a large crowd, but she will now travel to see them after the band’s management stepped in after reading her blog.

Alice’s bucket list

* To swim with sharks.

* To make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor.

* To go to Kenya (I can’t travel there now but I wanted to).

* To enter Mabel in a regional Labrador show.

* To have a photo shoot with Milly, Clarissa, Sammie and Megs.

* To have a private cinema party for me and my BFFs

* To design an Emma Bridgewater Mug to sell for charity.

* To stay in a caravan.

* To have a purple Apple iPad but I’m not really allowed to put that on here and mum is trying to borrow one

* To be a dolphin trainer (I can’t do this one either now).

* To meet Take That.

* To go to Cadbury World and eat lots of chocolate.

* To have a nice picture taken with Mabel.

* To stay in the chocolate room at Alton Towers.

* To have my hair done if they can do anything with it.

* To have back massage.

* To go whale watching.