Efforts for Hallie’s fundraising are going strong (Picture: Kim Wileman)
‘Complete strangers are donating to help my little girl,’ says dad Jamie Reeve, talking about the £750,000 raised for his daughter Hallie’s cancer treatment. ‘It means everything to us at the minute really.’
He and his partner Kim Wileman have captured the hearts of the nation, while they race to raise £1 million to fund two-year-old Hallie’s specialist leukemia treatment.
‘We’re feeling the love right now, people care, we’re doing the best we can in hospital and everybody outside the hospital seems to be doing everything they can to fundraise,’ Jamie tells Metro.co.uk.
‘It means everything. There isn’t one thing I want more in this world.’
Jamie, 34, and Kim, 29, found out their daughter had Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (JMML) – chronic blood cancer – within hours of landing in Malaga for their first ever family holiday abroad on July 16 2022. She’d seemed lethargic before the flight, but a doctor gave her the all-clear to travel before her health deteriorated on the plane.
The tot has since undergone chemotherapy, blood transfusions and two stem cell transplants – but both transplants failed.
Parents Jamie and Kim are now desperately trying to raise more than a million pounds to pay for CAR T-cell therapy in the United States, because the NHS won’t offer the experimental treatment for Hallie’s particular type of cancer.
Family and friends have completed a sponsored 26-mile walk, which raised £6,500, as well as bake sales and charity football matches. Strangers have made anonymous donations, while nurseries have been wearing yellow for Hallie. No amount has gone unnoticed.
Baby Hallie was allowed to leave hospital (Picture: Kim Wileman)
Recently, Hallie was found to have 75% Leukemic cells, a number that will hopefully be reduced to 10% with the round of chemotherapy she has just completed.
One silver lining, is that Hallie has finally been allowed home after more than 100 days in hospital.
‘It’s so special,’ says Jamie. ‘We’re back in hospital every day, but we’re staying at home. Hallie’s really happy at home, she’s loving it actually.
‘Kim and I are just trying to savour every single moment.’
How you can help Hallie:
If you want to contribute to Hallie’s cancer treatment fundraiser click here.
Hallie has enjoyed being at home with her family rather than in hospital (Picture: Kim Wileman)
The family need one last push to raise the remaining quarter of a million pounds for Hallie’s treatment, after what has been a bad year since their daughter’s heartbreaking diagnosis.
‘We thought that night she was going to die. We were lying in the same bed, all three of us, and we were kind of saying goodbye because we didn’t know what was going on,’ says Jamie, talking about their trip to Malaga.
‘Getting that news was horrific. We were in a foreign country, none of the nurses spoke, English which was quite difficult for us because we couldn’t understand exactly what was going on.
‘At that time we just wanted to be at home and the Spanish medical team kindly took the reigns and just did what they needed to do to keep Hallie alive, because we thought that night she was going to die.’
Baby Hallie with dad Jamie and mum Kim (Picture: Kim Wileman)
The parents took Hallie to the doctor before their flight, making her diagnosis even more shocking.
‘As parents we did everything right,’ Jamie adds. ‘We asked if we had the go-ahead to fly and they said “yeah it’s fine, she should get better in the next few days”.
‘So we flew, and we just had a feeling on the plane that something wasn’t right and as soon as we landed, things were getting quite bad.
‘She was a little bit lifeless, from the very smiley energetic little sweet girl that she is, she was very lethargic, she didn’t want to do anything.
‘She didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to drink. It was Kim that said I want to take her to hospital.’
Hallie spent 10 days in intensive care in Malaga before being flown to Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where she’s just finished a round of chemotherapy.
Hallie has just completed her chemotherapy (Picture: Kim Wileman)
Jamie says: ‘Time isn’t on our side. What I don’t want to happen is, I’ve seen instances in the past with children that relapse from transplant and their leukaemia levels have risen so high that any treatment can’t happen because they’re just so poorly.
‘We don’t want Hallie to get to that stage. We need to get the ball rolling.’
The family are close to their target and are grateful for everyone who has fundraised so far. Jamie says: ‘No donation is too small – they’re all welcome.’
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The family need to reach their £1 million target.
