“My name is Sohie and I have cancer, called Leukemia, it's hard to say isn't it? It might help to say it like this: Loo-kee-mia. Leukemia is cancer in the blood and at the moment I am having some really strong medicine called Chemotherapy - that's another big word too, isn't it? We call it Chemo, the 'ch' sounds like a 'K'. The Chemo is yucky but I know it is destroying all the cancer cells in my body right now. It is also destroying some of the good cells too, just for a while, including the hair cells. So, that is why my hair has fallen out. Oh don't worry, it will grow back again soon, Mom says after the strong chemo it will grow back just like a baby's hair and then thicker and thicker.

Hey, you know what? I had to go back to school with no hair. It was pretty scary, I wanted to wear my hat all the time because I was afraid to let the other kids see me looking so different. My friends were great but some of the other kids teased me.

What really helped though was when the Camp Quality Puppets visited my school, they explained everything, you know about my cancer and how hard it was to see everyone again after being away from school for a long time and one thing I really remember was, that even if I look a bit different on the outside, I am still the same on the inside, and you know what? That helped the other kids understand, and they really enjoyed seeing the puppets too. It's great, I don't feel I look funny anymore and I don't feel afraid to go to school. I look forward to it now and the kids at school help me feel a lot better just by being friendly to me."

Sophie Matthew Natalie Jack