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I admire my mother for she has been responsible for holding our family together. Without my mum's strength, determinism, faith and love I truly believe that our family would not have survived what we have all been through. Since she has become a mother she has fought to maintain family stability, and still provide a normal family household and upbringing for my brothers and myself, despite what life has dealt her.

Her eldest, my brother Ian, was born twenty-eight years ago and was completely healthy. However a year later my brother David followed and he was born with a hare lip, and had paralysis down the right side of his body. He also had a rare (and at the time incurable) bone-marrow disorder, which meant he had to have frequent blood-transfusions to stay alive. At this time too, my grandfather, her dad, was dying of cancer. My mum gave up work then to become a full time housewife and mother, leaving my father to be the only breadwinner. She fought for the privilege of having David alive with us for the nine years he lived. It was an up-hill struggle from the day he was born, trying to feed him, keeping him alive until his lip was repaired by plastic surgery. She then spent the next nine years in and out of hospital with him until his death, just before his tenth birthday.

I was born when Ian was seven and David six, and I was diagnosed with the same bone-marrow disorder, Aplastic Anaemia, as David, so my mum had two critically sick children to deal with. When I was seven my parents had to make probably one of the most difficult decisions of their life, and decided to allow me to have a bone-marrow transplant at Great Ormond Street Hospital. This procedure was extremely dangerous, and had low chances of success that I would survive and be cured of the blood disease. When I was ten, I had that transplant, thanks to their brave decision, and (obviously) survived. That was eleven years ago, and despite everything this family has gone through mine and my brothers' lives have been really happy, filled with laughter and joy, amongst the suffering, thanks to my mum's unbeatable strength.

My mum's strength has carried both David and I through our lives, and it has been the force through which we gained our strength of character, to not to give up and let life's experiences destroy our spirit. It was she who stood by and allowed David at the age of two repeatedly throw every toy in his possession at any doctor who dared came near him, after a

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