WATCH: Singing helped Northampton girl get through time in hospital after life-saving transplant during lockdown

In January, Maisie, 12, from Northampton, learned that after eighteen months in remission, her cancer had returned and she needed treatment.

In May, during lockdown, she received a life-saving stem cell transplant from her sister, Cecily, and will now continue to shield until May 2021.

While her classmates return to school, Maisie will continue to home school as she isolates at her grandparents’ house. Her family have decided to continue shielding Maisie until May 2021, a year after the date of her life-saving transplant.

Mum, Sarah, said: “I go round to see Cecily and my husband Pete about once a week at a distance. I go for a weekly dog walk with Cecily. The advice has changed but we don’t feel comfortable coming out of shielding just yet.”

One thing that really helped Maisie throughout this tough time was singing. Today, she is sharing a video which shows her singing while in isolation after her transplant, and now at home.

Maisie said: “Singing makes me happy - it makes me feel free, even when I was feeling really ill and couldn’t see my friends, I could always sing.”

This year has been tough for everyone, but especially for young cancer patients and their families. To mark September’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, CLIC Sargent, the UK’s leading charity for children and young people with cancer, is giving young cancer patients and their families a chance to tell their story.

Maisie said: “I’ve always loved singing, even from when I was little, and am always singing about the house. Ariana Grande’s my favourite singer, and I love to watch things like The Voice and Britain’s got talent - maybe one day I’ll get a shot.”

While in hospital Maisie would sing Rise Up by Andra Day, “this is a really special song for me - I’ve liked it for a long time, but it seemed to mean even more as this year has gone on. It really inspired me while I was in hospital feeling poorly and helped keep me and mum going - I hope it inspires others too to keep going.”

Maisie first felt unwell on Christmas Day in 2015. She started to complain about having a sore shoulder, and by the 7th January 2016 she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a rare type of blood cancer.

She added: “When they called us in to the side room, I breezed in there thinking they'd tell me it was appendicitis and that she'd be in surgery for a couple of hours and we'd have her home by the weekend. I just couldn’t take it in - it made no sense.”

After several rounds of treatment, Maisie was then given the all clear and life went back to normal for her family. However, 18 months later, she started to get a pain in her knee which didn’t go away. They had been to the hospital a few times and her blood results came back fine.

Then, the pain returned last Christmas so she went to A&E in the festive period for more tests but, again, they were told she was fine. The next morning her consultant asked why Maisie had been in A&E, when her mum explained they asked them to come in for further tests, and later they were given the news her cancer had returned.

“They told us to go and pack our bags, there was a bed waiting for us in Nottingham. I had a horrible sense of déjà vu with history repeating itself. It was virtually four years to the day she’d been diagnosed the first time, just a week short.”

They were told the best treatment would be a bone marrow transplant after a few weeks of intense chemotherapy. For six weeks Maisie had chemotherapy in Nottingham and her family were able to stay for free at Billy’s House, a CLIC Sargent Home from Home nearby to the hospital so they could all be together.

Her sister, Cecily, 11, was the best match for her bone marrow transplant and so on 1 May, while the country was in lockdown, Cecily sat in one room with their dad and Maisie sat across a glass window in a separate room with her mum to receive the life-saving cells.

Maisie and mum Sarah then spent the next eight weeks in isolation at Great Ormond Street Hospital without any visitors apart from Pete who would travel up from Northampton to London once a week with clean clothes and food. He would pass these over to Sarah without being able to even see Maisie.

Now, as her friends go back to school, Maisie continuing to stay at home shielding and home school. Her family decided to continue shielding Maisie until May 2021, a year after her transplant date. To give Pete and Cecily normality of going back to work and school and to prevent risk of infection to Maisie, Sarah and Maisie have moved out to her grandparents to isolate which means they can only meet up as a family at a distance once a week.

Mum, Sarah said: “It’s incredibly tough for us all being apart, but as a family we feel it’s a sacrifice worth making - we’ve come this far and we need to continue to keep Maisie safe, whilst providing some normality for Cecily. Life is starting to get back to normal, Cecily is back with her classmates, and Maisie has just started homeschooling which is great.”