Dr Pointer is now being helped by LPT to research childhood cancer

Catherine Pointer first came across The Little Princess Trust in 2009 when she received one of our wigs while undergoing treatment for leukaemia.

Fifteen years later, Dr Pointer is once again being helped by The Little Princess Trust in a very different way as she is now a childhood cancer researcher.

Dr Pointer works at Southampton General Hospital, which is one of the 12 Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs) in the UK that are part-funded by LPT.

It was when she was aged 14 that Dr Pointer was first diagnosed with leukaemia. Her cancer returned three years later when she had to undergo a full bone marrow transplant.

Despite facing enormous personal challenges during much of her teenage years, Dr Pointer passed her GCSEs and A-levels, and went on to complete a PhD at University Hospital Southampton.

She was not aware of The Little Princess Trust’s free wig provision service when she was first diagnosed and only received her LPT wig after a health social worker made the request on her behalf when her cancer returned.

“When I opened the box and saw the wig was made of real hair, I just thought this can’t be for me,” she said.

“I had already been given some other wigs from the NHS, but the LPT one was such good quality and soon became my ‘going out’ wig.”

Dr Pointer said that when she returned to college after finishing treatment for a second time, she knew she wanted to study biomedical science at university and cited her illness as work experience in applications.

“When cancer strikes, it seems logical to many people that you should cut out anything else which is causing you stress,” she added.

“But having just fought for my life, I thought why should I now limit myself for the rest of it?

“Cancer presented itself to me as a problem and I wanted to do something about it. And, while I often cursed the stress, it all became worth it the day I finished my PhD.”

Catherine now works at the same hospital where she was first treated as an ECMC Scientist and Quality Manager for cancer clinical trials.

ECMCs perform ground-breaking work by putting new drugs through early clinical trials to see if they are effective against different types of cancer.

The Little Princess Trust was very proud to join the existing funders and help to treble the money going towards cancer treatments of the future when we joined last year.

This week, we were delighted to welcome Dr Pointer to The Hannah Tarplee Building in Hereford and let her know even more about The Little Princess Trust.

While at our headquarters, she was able to see the wigs that so impressed her many years ago and, of course, discuss our shared ambitions to improve the lives of young people with cancer through research.