Serviceman who lost his 17-month-old daughter to cancer gets behinds Smiles At Christmas campaign
Andy Barnard, a Senior Aircraftman in the RAF, is calling on everyone to join up and help fight cancer in children
A DAD who tragically lost his daughter to a rare form of cancer is has added his voice to The Sun's Smiles at Christmas campaign.
Andrew Barnard's little girl, Poppy-Mai, was diagnosed with the disease early this year and was given just two days to live when doctors realised the extent of the illness.
The brave little tot outlasted the doctors predictions but tragically passed away in May this year.
Now Andy is on a mission to raise awareness and is sharing his story with The Sun as part of our Smiles at Christmas campaign.
The 32-year-old Senior Aircraftman is calling on everyone to "get together" and help fight cancer in children.
Andy who has served in both the RAF and the Army told The Sun: "The message I want to get out is that we all need to get together, because when we get together we get heard.
"Instead of individuals trying to work on our own we can work together.
"If we all come together then there’s something that we can do."
Sharing his tragic story he said: "I brought her home in March and she passed away on May 3rd.
"She had a very rare and aggressive cancer called a malignant rhabdoid tumour and it progressed and spread around her body, through her kidneys and lungs.
"She ended up with a metastatic brain tumour about the size of my fist behind her right eye."
He added that to begin with doctors thought was teething and then said it was a blocked bowel.
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"But because they didn’t physically examine her they didn’t realise the lump was on her kidneys not in her bowel," Andy said.
Following his daughter's tragic passing Andy and his family, wife Sammi, 30, and his two sons Rylee, 7, and four-year-old Jenson are trying to raise awareness of children who suffer from cancer through the Poppy-Mai Foundaiton.
Andy said: "You see campaigns for anti smoking, anti drinking, drink driving campaigns and diabetes but you don’t see enough about children with cancer."
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Text: To give £2, text KIDS55 2 to 70070. You can change the amount to £3, £4, £5 or £10 by changing the last figure to 3, 4, 5 or 10.
Post: Send a cheque, made payable to JustGiving Foundation, to JustGiving The Sun Appeal, Bluefin Building 2nd Floor, London SE1 0TA
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Or tweet using #SmilesAtChristmas to let us know how you’re getting involved!
He went on to tell of how an online petition he started gained enough signatures to get child cancer treatment debated in parliament last Monday.
He said: "When I was in parliament last week everybody in that room knew a child that had suffered from cancer.
"So it might be rare but it’s there and it needs to be brought to light."
MPs debated the issue for around two hours, and Andy was pleased with the publicity it generated allowing him to speak to a couple of radio stations.
Andy revealed that his efforts were now attracting international attention saying: "For me, it’s all about awareness and our awareness has spread that far now that I’m being flown out to LA tomorrow to pick up funding for our charity from a company called Saivian International.
"They’re sponsoring five charities from around the world and they’ve chosen to back our charity, the , as the one from the UK.
"We don’t know how much we’re going to get yet but we know we’re going come away with a minimum of $10,000."
Andy has served in both the RAF and the Army for a total of 13 years heading on tours of duty in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
But now he is giving himself 12 more months in forces to draw up a plan to build up the Poppy-Mai Foundation before devoting himself full time to that.
You can help stop other families suffering like Andy's has by donating to our campaign.
The drive is to raise £1 million for four charities, including Children With Cancer, a charity dedicated to investing millions of pounds into research and welfare for kids every year.
Our Smiles At Christmas appeal is urging our generous readers to donate money, toys or both to needy children.
A quarter of all donations and toys to our Smiles At Christmas appeal will be given to Children With Cancer UK, one of four charities we are supporting.
More than 4,000 children and young people in the UK are diagnosed with the disease each year. Of those, ten die every week.