My name is Kirsty.
Is your name Kirsty too?
*Other spellings included!
Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and young adults under 40 in the UK.
I was hoping you'd say that!
I'm Kirsty. I'm 11, and I'm trying to find as many Kirstys as I can! I hope you will join in. Here's why.In November 2024, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I've been on chemotherapy ever since. Last year I raised £120,000 to help other children with different types of cancer.I've met hundreds of lovely people but some of the nicest were called Kirsty! So this year I'm trying to find *all the Kirstys and Kirsties to show how much we care about children with brain tumours and raise more money. This time I want to help find cures and better treatments.Since there are almost no baby Kirstys now, we need to do it quickly before we all die out like the dinosaurs 😄
Join my map!
If you can do one thing: become one of the thousands of Kirstys on my map. It's fun! And you'll be showing that you support me and all children with brain tumours.
Make it all worthwhile
If you can do one more thing: help me raise money. I'm fundraising via JustGiving for OSCAR's Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity. Every penny will go on research projects. It's the only way we'll fix brain tumours.
Find out about me and my brain tumour (he's called Terry).
Today and every day, another child in the UK will be diagnosed with a brain tumour. Thousands live with lifelong effects.
What a shame.
But you could still cheer me on!
My name is Kirsty. I'm 11, and I'm sorry you don't have the best name in the world. But I still want your help! Here's how.In November 2024, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I've been on chemotherapy ever since. Last year I raised £120,000 to help other children with different types of cancer.This year I'm trying to show how much everyone cares about children with brain tumours – and raise money too! This time I want to help find cures and better treatments.
Become a Friend of Kirsty
If you can do one thing: add yourself to my map as a Friend of Kirsty. You'll be showing that you support me and all children with brain tumours. And every name show how urgent brain tumour research is.
Fund research into brain tumours
Make it all worthwhile. I'm fundraising via JustGiving for OSCAR's Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity. Every penny will go on research projects. It's the only way we'll fix brain tumours.
Help me find Kirstys
If you know a Kirsty or Kirstie: please send this site to them.Don't know a Kirsty? One in three people does. So if you share this with just 20 people – workmates, neighbours, friends – the chance of finding one is 99%.Together, we can make this work!
Help me find Kirstys
If you know a Kirsty or Kirstie: please send this site to them.Don't know a Kirsty? One in three people does. So if you share this with just 20 people – workmates, neighbours, friends – the chance of finding one is 99%.Together, we can make this work!
Find out about me and my brain tumour (he's called Terry).
Today and every day, another child in the UK will be diagnosed with a brain tumour. Thousands live with lifelong effects.
All about Kirsty
My story
My name is Kirsty and I am living my life slightly differently from my friends at school. It all changed at the end of Summer 2024. We were back from holiday, and I had just been to Taylor Swift's Eras tour (Amazing!) and I was looking forward to starting Year 6.Most of the first part of my story is information that people have told me. But I remember looking at the board one day and thinking how I couldn't quite see all the writing. Then I started to lose my memory. I fell asleep during the day. The next thing I remember is going through an MRI machine. Read more
A parent's story
We were first told about Terry in November 2024 – though he'd been clamouring for attention for two months. That's when Kirsty's eyesight first began to fade. Glasses didn't help. We were put on an NHS waiting list. She became tired, forgetful. Meanwhile, we holidayed, we played sport, we got on with life.And then, one sunny Friday, she vomited at breakfast. By lunchtime I was told about the large brain tumour they'd found. By Wednesday we were pacing a London park as she underwent six hours of brain surgery to relieve the pressure.Kirsty has been on chemotherapy ever since, as her specialists pick from the limited treatments available to keep Terry under control. None of them are kind, none of them are cures. Life isn't what it was, but it goes on; for many families like ours, that's not the case. It doesn't have to be that way.Read our full account.
Some children's brain tumours have a survival rate of less than 1%. Parents are told to 'go and make memories'.
Kirsty's Map
Add yourself to the map! Tap a heart to meet a supporter, or a star to find a Kirsty who's backing children with brain tumours.
Why take part?
Your name on the map shows that one more person understands the impact of brain tumours and the urgent need for action.And you'll show Kirsty – and every other child with a brain tumour – that you care about them.
What am I signing up to?
On this map we'll put your name and approximate location, plus any other info you'd like to share. If you're a Kirsty or Kirstie, you can also add a photo.Kirsty will send you occasional progress emails, but only if you want them. That's it. Nothing else.
For every £100 of government funding on cancer, just 3p is spent on children's brain tumour research.
Join Kirsty's map
Add yourself to Kirsty’s Map to show support for children with brain tumours. It takes about 30 seconds.We only show an approximate location. Please note: all entries are reviewed before appearing on the map but we'll do them as fast as we can!
GIVING STATS
Kirstys (1880)
Friends (2093)
Total: £63,015
Thanks – we'll add you as soon as we can!
Imagine if we could get 20,000 Kirstys and their friends onto a map: what a huge hug that would be for every kid with a brain tumour.
BUT WAIT!
Hugs are great, but hope is better. Because if all of you spare a tenner, there's a real chance of improving and saving lives through research.
Every penny you give will go to projects selected by OSCAR's Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity. It's the only way we'll fix brain tumours.
One in three people knows a Kirsty. If you share this with just 20 people – workmates, neighbours, friends – the chance of finding one is 99%.You can make this work!
'Some people say why throw money at such a complex disease like brain tumours? But surely that is why we should? Do we just give up when something is more difficult? Or do we try even harder?'
Isabella, aged 14
Kirsty's story
We were told I have a low grade tumour, and I soon had an operation to remove some of him. (I say him because we named it Terry!) I spent two weeks in hospital, and those two weeks were certainly not the funnest. There are little glimmers that I can remember. There were two really lovely physiotherapists, Sharon and Anna. I was showered with a mountain of cuddly toys and thoughtful letters (not that I could read them!). And I got a lot of support and love.After I had recovered from my operation, we were told I would start 70 weeks of chemotherapy. This seemed like a lot, but it wasn't a very harsh treatment, with only side effects of hair thinning and a few aches and pains. And in around February the next year, my eyesight and memory suddenly came back, and that changed everything. All those enlarged sheets at school, asking my parents everything that was going on, having the largest text size on my iPad: they just weren't needed. And suddenly, I felt a lot more like my friends. So I went on, week by week, and in the meantime raised money for a children's cancer charity and met people like the amazing Davina McCall and Stacey Solomon.Then in December, I was told that my treatment had stopped working and we would need to switch to 2 new drugs, lasting for 85 more weeks. I remember being told at the hospital. I remember coming home and having to smile to my sisters until we told them. The treatment I started – and am now on – is two different medicines: one quite similar to my old one, and one much harsher which makes me quite sick and breathless. So there we were in the same situation we were the previous year, needing something to take our minds off everything. That's when we came up with the idea of finding as many Kirstys/Kirsties (not an easy name to pluralise!) as we can.I don't know what I see 'future me' doing. But for these next 85 weeks, and forever on, I want to make a small difference in the stories told of brain tumours. I want to hear about better treatments, ones that don't limit the things you're able to do. I want better outcomes for people with brain tumours. Only 1% of government funding for cancers go into brain tumours, even though it is the leading cancer killer of children and adults.Do you know a Kirsty or Kirstie? They could be an old school friend, workmate, neighbour, or even maybe your friend's step cousin once removed! Let them know! Or if not, you can still be a heart on my map. But what I'd like to get out of this most of all is vital money for research into brain tumours. So if you could support in any way, I would be so grateful. You never know, maybe we can take that 1% and just add a little bit more, a little bit that could change lives for people like me.
The longer version
By Mat, Kirsty's Dad
It's August 2024. Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. The Waugh family (minus Dad!) are in the cheapest seats, three postcodes from the stage. Kirsty is transfixed by every dance move, every sequin.September 2024: back to school, and Kirsty says she's finding the whiteboard hard to read. By mid September she has glasses – but she says they don't really help. She's put on an NHS waiting list to see a specialist, with instructions not to chase our appointment for 10 weeks.October 2024: we're on a half-term hiking break. Kirsty is tired and sleepy… but Dad's walks aren't easy! Is it us, or is she a little forgetful at the moment? Vision back at school is a significant problem; she squints her way through the secondary school entrance exam.November 2024: Kirsty is sick as she eats breakfast. She stays home, but seems right as rain – albeit with the memory of a goldfish.Three days later: she's sick again, same time. The appointment is now round the corner – but nothing adds up. On a bright, sunny morning we bounce into hospital for reassurance. Three hours later I'm ushered into a side room and told she has a golf ball sized brain tumour, type unknown. Five days later, she's undergoing a six hour operation to relieve the pressure inside her head.Just in case you're wondering: Kirsty never got a headache.Kirsty was one of around 400 children in 2024 to be diagnosed with a brain tumour, another unwilling recruit to a community of thousands. Add to that their families, and we'd fill the O2 many times over. I guarantee that there's someone with brain tumour close to you – whether you (or they) know it or not.Kirsty's tumour is benign (low grade), but as they say, benign isn't fine. Embedded deep behind her eyes, it can't be removed. As it grows, it squashes parts of the brain you don't want squashed. Within days, Kirsty began chemotherapy and in combination with the operation, her eyesight and memory miraculously returned in February 2025. But this first choice drug is about holding things steady; it was first licensed in the sixties. After a year, we've switched to a second line (licensed forty years ago) and are staring down another 85 weeks of chemo. And yet we are very much the lucky ones in 2024's cohort of 400 devastated families. The journey that other families are going through is barely imaginable, even to us.Around the time Kirsty's drugs were first used, childhood leukaemia was a diagnosis with very little hope. Today, most children are cured. That's why brain tumours kill more children than any other cancer in the UK, and cause life-long problems for many, many more. There are new treatments for brain cancer, for some. Immunotherapy. Proton Beam Therapy. Inhibitors. But progress is so, so slow."And how is Kirsty doing?" we are asked, daily (we don't mind!). Our answer now always begins, "Today…" You won't get a big picture because we've learned that the story of a brain tumour is told in hindsight, with each development informing the last. There's little by way of a short-term weather forecast, let alone a crystal ball.But today, Kirsty is at school (she passed that exam). She's dipping out for her many hospital appointments, moaning about homework, happy about shopping, crochet and raising money to help find kind treatments that work. By helping and encouraging Kirsty with a donation, however small, you are genuinely helping to improve the lives of thousands more just like her in the UK and around the world.
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