TeamAlfie - Alfie’s cancer journey

09/09/2026

** Apologises this is another one of my long posts but please read to the end**
After all the good news of yesterday. I want to bring your attention to something else lovely happening for Alfie soon.
A few ladies from Kinghorn are organising a coffee morning on Saturday the 26th September in Kinghorn Church Hall, 11am to 2pm 💙☕🫖🍪
It was initially to raise funds for Team Alfie but with Alfie being the selfless boy he has been throughout this awful journey, he wanted to also raise funds for a few of the charities that have supported him and in particular the Teenage Cancer Trust as he knew his support worker on the Lochranza ward was looking to buy a Nintendo Switch 2 and Alfie would love to make enough funds to be able to buy one and also have it engraved detailing he donated it, to help all the kids that go through the Lochranza Ward and Day care ward, as he is well aware of how something like this keeps the kids(himself included) entertained on long days stuck in bed receiving chemotherapy and fluids 💙🎮👾 Alfie also would hope he could have enough funds to put some small toys, etc in the ward treatment box (organised by Love Oliver) which helps, particularly the younger children, with a little gift on going through harsh cancer treatments and surgeries 🥰 🪆🧸❤️
Now for your help please, I am particularly looking for local home bakers to provide some goodies for the cake stall, as Ross & I would have been baking but we are away to Center Parcs ( last celebration for Alfie's 16th birthday) the week off the coffee morning. We will be returning home on Friday the 25th September and would be happy to take any baked donations at our house after 4pm, that day or they can be dropped off at the coffee morning between 9-10 am at the church hall in Kinghorn.
If baking is not your forte can you maybe help out with packets of sweeties, haribo, multi pack chocolate bars, chocolate bars,etc for Alfie and I will be running a sweetie tombola on the day and would be delighted and really appreciative if you wanted to part with any other donations for our raffle, tombola or bric a brac stalls. I am also looking for someone local to donate a cake for us running a guess the weight of the cake competition! ❤️🎂
The coffee morning is free to get into (donations if wanting too, at the door, Alfie & one of his friends will be on hand for that), along with the many activities, to take your luck in, there will be photos and a story board of Alfie's journey to see how it all began and where we are now, as we want to raise awareness of how you can never say never to cancer knocking on your door, as if it can happen to Alfie and us then it can happen to anyone and this is very much what this event is all about 💙🩶🎗️ and finally you will also be able to have a nice cup of tea or coffee and biscuits to dunk, if that's your cup of tea (sorry excuse the pun)😄☕🫖🍪
Donations can be dropped to us at 3 Carlin Craig, Kinghorn KY3 9RX till Sunday the 20th September with home bakes after 4pm on Friday the 26th September. Please let us know if you are donating and any local volunteers willing to help out at the coffee morning can you get in touch with Louise Rutherford, Anne Wilkinson, Wendy Marshall or Shona wright.
Thank you so much in advance, Team Alfie xx🫶💙

08/09/2026

Alfie is currently in hospital for his 7th and penultimate cycle of chemotherapy 💙 but the photo shows Alfie going in to have his latest MRI, last Wednesday and so began scanxiety where your head is all over the place, with thoughts of fear & anxiousness and you find yourself hoping and praying it will just come back with no signs of anything cancerous. The wait for the results of the scan take approx a week, till all the consultants get together and discuss the findings!
GREAT NEWS, Alfie's oncologist consultant has confirmed, today, that it is all clear again like the last time and he is very pleased with everything that Alfie has achieved so far - Alfie you are more than amazing you are our super hero 🦸 you have sailed through your cancer treatment without any major infections, blood transfusions or too many grumbles and we are now within touching distance of finishing your treatment for brain cancer 💙💙🩶🎗️
Thank you again for all your love and support for Alfie but also for Ross & I, as you have kept us going along this bumpy and awful road we unfortunately found ourselves on, we will be forever grateful to you all, strangers and friends, neighbours and communities.
After all of today's exciting and wonderful news, I will have a little favour to ask, tomorrow, of mainly our local supporters but just need to relax and be with Alfie tonight and will divulge more tomorrow xx🙏🥰

01/09/2026

🥲 Sorry in advance, as hankies at the ready might be a must before reading this 🥲
The 1st of September marks the start of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and I don’t really know how I wanted to start September but today I am not really with it, emotionally and can’t stop thinking that after this month is over, we will be so much closer to Alfie finishing his cancer treatment but we will also be getting closer to it being a year since Alfie was unwell with sickness and ad hoc headaches.
This is another mum’s words but it has resonated with me today 💔
** Please read it all if you can and understand how I never would wish this on anybody not even my worse enemy**

What a privilege it is to never have this view.

To never hear the words “your child has cancer”
and feel your entire world collapse before your eyes.
To never know the sound of IV pumps in the middle of the night.
To never memorize blood counts, medication schedules, chemo days, and side effects like it becomes your second language.
To never sleep in plastic hospital chairs beside your child while pretending you’re not falling apart.

To never hold your child down for procedures while they scream and beg you to make it stop. Alfie having cannulas put in for anaesthetics, scans, bloods, etc
To never watch poison drip into their tiny veins while praying it’s strong enough to save them but gentle enough not to destroy them.
To never watch cancer slowly steal pieces of their childhood right in front of you.

There are parents walking this earth carrying a grief and fear so heavy it changes them forever…
even when their child survives.
Because cancer doesn’t just happen to the child…
It happens to the entire family.
It steals innocence.
It steals normalcy.
It steals pieces of people that never fully come back.

There is a pain that comes with watching your child fight cancer that no words can fully explain.
Because you don’t just witness suffering…
you carry it.
You absorb every ounce of their fear, their pain, their confusion, and you hold it inside yourself while trying to stay strong for them.

You smile while your heart shatters.
You tell them they’re brave while you fall apart in toilets and rooms where nobody can hear you cry.
You become exhausted in ways sleep could never fix.

And the cruelest part is that the world keeps moving while yours completely stops.
People still go to work and on holiday and kids still go to school, sports, and birthday parties
Life still goes on outside those hospital walls while you’re inside begging for one more good lab result…
one more fever free night…
one more chance to bring your boy home.

You stop caring about the little things.
The messy house.
The laundry.
The unanswered texts.
None of it matters when you’ve looked at your child and wondered if you might lose them.

So truly what a privilege it is to never have this view.
To never know this fear.
To never have your heart living outside your body in a hospital bed connected to tubes and machines.

Because once you’ve seen it…
once it’s your child…
you never see the world the same way again.
💙🩶🎗️💛 (please wear gold at some point this month and remember that Alfie is still going through treatment but will hopefully be in remission soon)

27/08/2026

💙💙Long, emotional read💙💙
Better late than never with Alfie's traditional day one school photo - our handsome S5.
It is coming up to a year since Alfie was officially last at school, he had been suffering from on/off periods of sickness and ad hoc headaches and we were convinced it was his tummy brought on by anxiety and stress about upcoming prelims. It made sense as at his age I had ended up in hospital with IBS and thought it was a family trait.
We couldn't have been further from the truth as on Monday the 27th October 2025, we encouraged him to go into school, as his friends and other pupils were returning after the October holidays and felt he wouldn't feel so out of the loop, after being off school for a few weeks!
He spoke to his guidance teacher, as she knew we believed he was struggling to deal with the forth coming prelims and then went to his first class where he was sick in a bin and Ross was called to collect him as the school felt he was disorientated on top of the sickness. On phoning me I was determined I was taking him back to the doctors as our instincts as his parents, felt we needed answers to what was going on
He was assessed at the victoria hospital and we found Alfie's land angel in the form of an older lady nurse, consultant, I can't remember her exact position but we do know now that she saved Alfie's life, as she went down a completely different path of it being anxiety and his stomach and instead spoke about the right hand side of his face, his speech and his balance and it was her who instructed a CT Scan, where they found the mass on his brain which was a 5cm tumour. He was blue lighted to Edinburgh sick kids and we went on and still are on a rollercoaster through brain cancer and all that it involves through treatment.
We are now within touching distance of the end of Alfie's treatment and he felt in a good place to want to get back to school. The whole school situation has been massive to Alfie because he liked school and was so looking forward and up for S4 but cancer stole that from him but he's back where he wants to be with who he wants to see more regularly and ready to shine, like we know you will🌟
If I was writing on paper it would be soaking by now but it is happy tears to have picked him up today after doing a couple of periods at school and to see him so happy and feeling he could have done more today but in true Alfie form he is not going to let cancer take away anymore school days from him.
Alfie you are absolutely amazing and me and your Dad find it hard to find the right words to let you know how very proud of you, we are and how much we love and respect your courage, strength and positivity to get through this and we know in our hearts that you are going to be, one resilient young man xx 💙🩶🎗️🫶

05/08/2026

Another amazing young man, Archie Goodburn, as amazing, strong and positive as our Alfie but the sad difference between them is that Alfie’s Brain cancer isn’t defined as rare, like Archie’s and is not life limiting as Alfie’s Medulloblastoma is treatable & curable but what is the same is the lack of government funding into research, cures and kinder treatments for children’s cancer that allows them to have radiotherapy and chemotherapy that isn’t meant to treat adults. I also found out that only 2% of government funding is used for kids cancer research much less than is given to breast cancer and prostate cancer. This is extremely disappointing and so sad when you think that children fighting cancer are the next generation and should be fully supported by the government to be able to live their lives cancer free.
I was advised by a friend, who is a nurse that it comes down to trending and which famous people that are going through these cancers that campaign for more support that get it. Archie’s very emotional interview on BBC has now reached Andy Burnam and let’s hope and push for a government turnaround on funding for Kids Cancer along with Rare brain cancers which I know that a lot of kids are also fighting. Please, if you can let’s get together and force and shame this government into making more funding availableMore here:

The 25-year-old athlete became teary over his urgent plea

03/08/2026

Hey everyone! I’m back again with good news and some even better memories. To start, I am through the majority of treatment for Cycle 6 of Chemotherapy! It has been a long and gruelling journey but I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s been hard, stressful and tiring but we are now nearly there and are now filled with so much optimism to have this treatment finished.

Yesterday was my final celebration for my birthday. If you know me, I love to drag out my birthday celebrations with Centre Parcs still to come at the end of September. Yesterday was brilliant, I took 5 of my friends to Deer Park in Livingston where we enjoyed 2 games of Bowling, Some food and cake, An hour of Interactive darts and to finish off, A few games of pool. I was truly spoiled in receiving gifts & cards from them and their families.

I want to take this time to thank you all for the donations to my 16th birthday fund for Centre Parcs. It is now booked along with some extras and the only thing left to do is to book some of my favourite restaurants nearer the time. On my return, I have something really nice happening and will divulge more within the next few weeks. It is happening on the Saturday the 26th of September.

Thanks everybody from a very happy 16 year old who has been truly spoiled in more ways than one and has made up for not celebrating my 16th in Bilund, Denmark (On hold until my 17th)

Alfie x - TeamAlfie 💙🩶🎊

23/07/2026

Hello everyone! I’m just coming on here to say thank you for everything that you have gifted for my birthday, whether it was a card, a present or money. It means so much to me that you have done this. This has been a birthday to remember and it has shown me how many people love and care for me.

When I got the diagnosis and had to start treatment down south last year, Some of those days I just felt so isolated from my community but thanks to all of you and to everyone else. I don’t feel so alone now. I know I’ve got people looking out for me that I couldn’t even see so thank you. Thank you for all your kinds word in the cards and to all the presents I got and to the money from you that will give me a truly magical experience at centre parcs.

Thank you,
Alfie 💙 🩶

22/07/2026

22nd of July 2010 at 10.10am you arrived and stole me and your Dad’s heart and we didn’t think we could love you anymore than we did that day 💙
We have made so many memories over the last 16 years but our hearts were truly broken after being given the most devastating news any parents can hear that their beautiful, only child has Cancer 😔
But today our hearts are bursting with love for you and our love for you is so strong and we now have an army of local and not so local people who also love you, as you make that easy to do Alfie because you are so personable, loving, funny but most of all amazingly brave, strong and positive after what you have went through in the last 9 months.
Today we celebrate you Alfie and look forward to making so many more memories together and we know you are loved, cared for and thought highly off by so many people.
Happy 16th Birthday Alfie from your very, very proud Mum & Dad xx 🎂🎁💙🎉
We hope you enjoy all your celebrations and know you will make this birthday last for weeks 😁😍

21/07/2026

Alfie is going to be one very happy and excited 16 year old, when he gets up to this tomorrow🎉🎁🎈🎈🫶