You're So Golden

This week I sit down with Katie Southgate, founder of Gold Geese, a charity supporting families of children with cancer. Katie shares her personal journey of her daughter Hattie's leukemia diagnosis and how it inspired her to create Gold Geese. The conversation explores the challenges faced by families during treatment, the importance of community support, and the various services Gold Geese provides. Katie emphasizes the need for awareness around childhood cancer and the emotional toll it takes on families. She also discusses the importance of self-care and setting boundaries to avoid burnout.

Takeaways

• Gold Geese provide support to families of children with cancer.
• Community support is crucial for families going through cancer treatment.
• Awareness of childhood cancer symptoms can lead to earlier diagnoses.
• Gold Geese focuses on tailored support for each family's needs.
• Setting boundaries is essential to avoid burnout at work.

Mentioned Poem (@ 01:06:04)
"Monday morning, the sun does rise, And people scarce believe their eyes. From near and far, a wondrous scene, The autumn skies, a sight unseen. Through golden clouds, they steer, they near, The people point, the people cheer. Above their heads, a flying crease, Six hundred, seven hundred geese. A flock of birds, a dimpled dish, Courageous girl, a special mish. She leads them all, behind they fly, A statement clear across the sky. Swooping now, a driven fleet, Closing in on Ormond Street. At first a whisper, then a roar: "We're with you Hattie, this is war!"

Gold Geese
Website - https://goldgeese.org/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/goldgeese
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GoldGeeseCharity
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/gold-geese

Keywords
Gold Geese, support, community, awareness, charity, cancer diagnosis, family support, mental health, childhood cancer.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Katie Southgate and Gold Geese
• 10:41 The Journey of Hattie's Diagnosis
• 20:33 The Birth of Gold Geese
• 35:00 Support Services Offered by Gold Geese
• 50:08 Community Engagement and Awareness
• 1:05:03 Legacy and Future Aspirations

Transcript

0:00

Thank you very much for coming in. In a minute I'll you set up with the bike and everything as well. Okay. Thank you for having me. No, you're welcome. I'm really excited. We have the starter jet, so... No, I'm not. No, but I'm really grateful because I think... It's so important for us to, especially locally. Yes. Because there's loads of us doing like really special little things in our own little fields to bring everyone together. Like I was listening to a couple of them and I've reached out to the lovely GP lady. Zoe. Zoe Watson. That's it. So I've reached out to her. that's so nice. Really good friends of Andy. I think of coffee because of Andy. Jobsworth, Season 2, Episode 11. You're so golden. you Welcome to episode 11 of Jobsworth season two. This week I sit down with Katie Southgate, founder and CEO of Gold Geese, a charity that provides support to families of children and young people fighting cancer. Katie is a mum of two. At just a year old, her daughter Hattie was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and in the blink of an eye, life as she knew it was turned upside down. We discuss what it was like being told that your child has cancer. We also talk about Katie's incredible response to the news, her strength throughout one of the most challenging times you can go through as a parent, the inspiring way in which she supported her eldest child, her son Dex, through the experience and how all of this helped shape the support she offers children and their families through Goldgeese. We also explore one of the most interesting lists of jobs I've ever seen on someone's CV. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. You'll hear plenty of ways you can support the work that Katie does throughout the podcast and if you haven't already spotted them, there are links to the Goldgeese website and all socials in the episode description. So, Without further ado, let me introduce you to the truly inspirational Katie Southgate. So when you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up? Everything. Okay, elaborate. First of all, my very first memory was I wanted to be a vet. Okay. And then I wanted to be an ambulance driver. And then I wanted to be a window cleaner at one point because I thought it was mesmerizing how they clean the windows. And then probably a thousand things in between. But my advice to my own children, which I'm giving them now, is don't listen to anybody else because I got told you'll have to put an animal down if you're a vet and you'll have to deal with drunk people if you're an ambulance driver and window cleaners don't make enough money. So I didn't do any of the things that I wanted because... there was always something wrong with it. And then at school even, so I to an all girls Catholic school, I said I wanted to be an engineer and they said you can't do that, you're a girl. Wow. Yeah, which makes me feel really old now, because I don't think anyone would say that now. Weirdly, I think there are some people probably still giving that advice, but that's not, I would like to think that's not wholesale. I think that's the minority of people saying that now. Whereas maybe when you were at school, yeah, that was the thing. And I think I would have been a great engineer. Yeah. But anyway, never mind. So that's lovely though, that's informed the way you parent now and kind of that experience has made you think, I'm not going to set those limitations for my kids. Still now, I'm thinking I still want to be a doctor. Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out, is that possible? Can I still do that? And there's loads of things in between that I think, yeah, I'll give that a go. So I think, what do you want to be when you grow up? You're very lucky if you choose one thing and then actually get to do it and enjoy it. I think that is, that's a path that... not very many people get. You're completely right. I ask everyone the same question when I started, we're 30 episodes into this now. The majority of people have said something that they didn't go on to be. My brother is someone that I cite all the time as being one of the only people I've ever spoken to that knew as early as 11 years old that he wanted to be an artist. And everything was geared towards doing that one goal. And I think you're very fortunate if you fall into something that you are passionate about, that you love, and then make a living out of. Yeah, that's funny because my brother from the age of three was I'm gonna be a golfer I'm gonna go and play the in the open and he is that's he's doing traveling the world. Yeah I think you see a you're lucky to be in love with something passionate and focused that early And he said people say to him you can't do that. You need your GCSE You've got to stay in school. Yeah, and really he just golfed from dust till dawn It is the minority but when it happens that kind of shines like a beacon doesn't it like you you really can if you commit to it You've to talent. With both of those endeavours, artist, golfer, you've got to have some innate talent there as well, but it's also work and not being thrown off course. Yeah, and filtering out the, you can't do that. You won't make money. And me with art as well, I got thrown off of my art course in school because I was too naughty. But that was the thing, artists don't make money. So it was like, well, I can't pursue a career, I can't make money. It's not true, is it? It's not. It's not, well no, I've seen it in real life, yeah, that people can make a living out of it. Is it the highest paying job out there? No, you probably don't move into it with that motivation, but you can make a living out of most things, to be honest with you, especially nowadays. Can I ask, the people that were sort of saying, you can't do that, like you're a girl, you're not gonna be able to do that. and window cleaners don't make enough money. were, what, where were those voices coming from? So you mentioned that the school you were at saying you were an engineer, that's not. That was a careers advisor that said that one. Which makes me laugh. Makes me laugh now. Makes me a bit angry if I'm honest with you. That's, that to me is just such a limiting thing to say, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, and how, also how insulting as well. I think so. Yeah. A careers advisor saying that as well. It's not someone, it's almost like more. It sounds awful but I'd accept that coming from a parent more than I would a careers advisor who is there to kind of, I would imagine, I'm a careers advisor, I'm there to say, do you know what, how do we make that happen? Here's the path. Which is, my son's coming up for 15 in November and I've been mesmerised with the way his school's dealt with it because that's what they say, is how do we do that? What lessons do you need to channel and focus on? That's really good, yeah. do get there? And that's the answer in a careers advice room, isn't it? I think so. I've talked a lot about careers advice and my experience with it going through college and it was just shit. It was like, okay, you go banking, finance if you're a guy, beauty, hairdressing if you're girl or admin. That's it. They were the roots. Receptionist. And not knocking anyone that did that, but they were your channels. And if you want to do anything outside of it, they were like, good luck. This is how you can make a living. Well you got labelled as difficult as well. That's difficult. Probably for them. Well exactly, because they don't know where to put you then. What box are you going to be in? But it's great to hear that your son at 15, that experience is very different than, go and get job in a big office in the city and see how you fare. Because that's basically what I was told. We're here to talk about... what you're doing now, which is incredible. And we'll go on to talk about that in a minute. There'll be a lot of people that know just from the intro when they hear it, who you are and what it is that you do. But what did you do before this? Because we're saying, what did you want to be when you were younger? So what was your experience with work before that? If you can kind of give a potted history. again, I've done everything. So I went traveling when I was 19 till about 22, 23. That's a big chunk of time. Yeah, I came back in the middle just to earn some money and go. So I've worked in banking and data stuff. Yeah. Which was boring, but it gave me the money to leave again. Yeah. So whilst traveling, I did everything from selling drinks on Bondi Beach to cleaning up hostels and stuff for free accommodation and everything. I used to drive camper vans back from, so if someone drives from A to B, then you get back to A, I drive it back. I have to ask because I did. campervans around Australia and New Zealand. So what was the firm? Can you name who you used to do it for? you remember? I can't remember. Was it Brits? There was Brits Campervan. It's only because I remember. I was 25 when I did it, so I'm talking 12, 13 years ago. yes. was Juicy Campers were the ones that I used. were painted up ones. The purple ones that you just drive around and do that. But I have to ask, because in my head there's always a question, was like, who the was driving these back? Me! That was me! It's you! So I got to see the country for Next to Nothing. Amazing, wow. So I did everything like that, anything I could really. Always around people. I'm a bit of a people person. I'm not even very good at living by myself. That's why I've had two children, just to keep me company. And then when I had my son, I trained as a child minder, so I didn't have to leave him or pay another child minder for him. So I ran that business from my home and had six or seven little mini humans to look after, which was hilarious. How long were you doing that for? For three or four years. Yeah, because obviously the reason why I set up the charity, it's first place was because my daughter got sick. So that's why child -minding stopped because I couldn't, I had literally threw one of the children back onto his dad at the school gates and took her in an ambulance. Really? Yeah, I mean there's a whole story in there. So yeah, child -minding was a... I flew hours at once upon a time in schools. I covered maternity leave where we went in and did an owl conservation display. You took owls in with us and then you'd fly the barn owl over the top of the kids. See, I remember this. This was like commonplace when I was at school. So I talk to my kids now and they're like... because they're six and three, but my six year old is now having like the reptiles come into the school. And I said like, when you have an owl fly over your head, when you're sat there with your legs crossed in assembly, nothing like it. Yeah, I think people remember it forever. It's so amazing. wow. No one's ever said they've done that. That's a first. I've got some, there's some random jobs in there that I've done. Yeah. But that was, that was one of my favorite ones because I really like birds. Yeah, I mean I can't imagine if you can make a living doing something like that I can't imagine there's much better if you like animals as well. afterwards? You've set the bar up here and then everything beyond that is yeah, I don't know you're always searching aren't you for the next our job I guess. But that's great. So it was a real mix. was a real hodgepodge in there but your son being born and training to be a child minder. Yeah, that was the last thing before I set up this channel. Okay, so Talk to me about that because I want to talk about the inspiration behind the charity that you founded and you're still obviously involved with and powering now. So Gold Geese. Talk to me about how that was founded. Okay. So my son, he was four and my daughter was one, nearly two. And she was one of those children that never slept as a kid. I know them well. my gosh, so exhausting. Anyone that's out there, there is hope because eventually they sleep. So she never slept. I was up all night, always. And then all of a sudden she started sleeping like 12 hours, which to a lot of people is normal. But it was so out of the ordinary. And then it was 12 hours with a nap in the day. She got an ear infection and then she got a chest infection. Nothing was going away. Basically it took about three weeks and she was getting sicker and sicker. We took her into Southend A &E via ambulance because she'd come up with this rash that looked a bit like meningitis. So I took her into Southend Hospital. They said, she's probably just dehydrated. Let's get this diurelite type stuff down her and you can go home. And then even in the hospital, the bruising was getting worse. They had to try and get a cannula in and it was just a nightmare. And she's still one at this time as She's still one, yeah. So she's waddling around, cutest little thing. She was obsessed with ducks at the time. She can only say about six or seven words. She was just waddling around going, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, sentence probably triggers everybody off because they actually take you away from your child to give you the news and I remember leaving it with the play specialist. It was just awful. was just awful. So they sat us down in a side room and said we think she's got leukemia. We don't know which type it's going to be just yet but the blood films come back and there's leukemia cells that we can see. They physically can see them underneath this screening thing. So I immediately stood up. I was like well tell me what to do. What do I do? and they said, well, ambulance, you straight up to Great Ormond Street, we just need a bed. And then they all sort out the plan, find out what type of leukemia it is. And now I know way more than I did then, but the chemo starts the next day. So they get you in. Yeah, it was really quick. The way they move with kids with leukemia is really fast. But that's because the leukaemia is cancer. So it's a blood cancer. Which I didn't know at the time. I think I knew the word leukemia, but I didn't know that it was a cancer as such like that. I think I was really naive to kids' cancers in general. And I don't imagine if you've not been in and around people with those conditions, why would that be any different? And again, since that's happened, I've realised that the cancer wards are so closed because the kids are so sick. So they're in isolation or they're in isolation at home. And I think that's why it's not that widely recognized because unless you, I mean, obviously now the power of Facebook is a lot of people share their stories and their journeys, but still until you see it, it is out of this world hideous, really, it's just hideous. I mean, I'm sitting here and sorry to interject, like we're two kids and I just want to say I'm sorry to you and everyone that's ever had to go through that. Like it makes me... My kids get the same things, viruses and little bits and pieces from school and nursery and that knocks me for six but to be told that, I can't imagine it. It's a little bit like someone's taking a grenade pin out and throwing it in your room and you can't get away from it. And I sort of laugh now because was ten years ago in November this happened. And I think what happened is the same with you, with kids similar age, distance apart, is lots of people were like, God, that could have been us, that could have been my daughter or my son or my little toddler. And I think that's where the community rallied round so fast for us because we had lots of kids. We obviously were at baby groups and then Dexter was at preschool and we had lots of friends and family. They just instantly wanted to help and I know that feeling now, watching people getting diagnosed. It's completely overwhelming for the family and the parents themselves. But the wider community is affected too, so the schools or the football clubs or anyone around that kid is like, my gosh. What do we do? How do we help? Were you living in and around Lee at that time as well? Have you always been around Lee? from the travelling bits and bobs, yeah I've always been at Lee. Because I think the lovely thing and something we've discussed so much in season two of the podcast has been community and collaboration as well. And similar experience with my kids being so wrapped up in all these groups and to have that, I just can't imagine doing that on your own. Like that without that support, without that community around you. So you're taken into that side room. your mindset in that point, I can imagine there's a million things going through your head, but it seems like the one you focus on there is what do we do? What can I do? I think, so there's lots of different parents, obviously now I've been in the world for a lot longer, but there's lots of different versions of parents that come out when you get told that news. You can have like the data collector, which is what I went to, tell me everything, I need to be expert in this field. And then you get, the opposite end of the spectrum is complete denial. and no one's reaction is right or wrong and I don't think you'll ever know which reaction you're going to have until that moment happens. So people in denial shut down, they don't want to believe it, they don't even look at when the chemo is going in, they just get on with whatever they need to get on with. But I went down the path of I need to know everything about this disease, I need to know everything about the chemo, how has it got to now, what do the trials mean. Who's the consultant? has he been? What's his qualifications essentially? It sounds like a very similar approach to the one my brother's taken of his little boy. He's got number of conditions that are still, they're going through so many tests and have been in the last three years that Harry's been here and he's very much, he needs to know everything. I would like to think I'd fall into that camp of pragmatism and proactivity and trying to be as clued up as I can but I look at people that do that in admiration. think that's an incredible mindset to switch into straight away. And maybe there's a curve sometimes. You go through denial and then into that point too. And I think as well, because some people say, can't imagine how I'd be and I agree. I don't think you'll ever know what your brain will, because it's a reaction. I didn't choose to. stand up and say, what do we do? It was literally my body stood up and was like, I'm fricking ready. And I remember feeling so powerful in that room. I was like, I could have killed someone. I could have been like, if you're in my way, I will murder you. That's the power of having kids as well, isn't it? They are literally, they ignite something in you that you just don't know is possible until they're here. Yeah, so luckily, so when we got into the, which is very funny actually, because the ambulance driver, used to have a little old Mini when I was 18. And we used to go boy racing up and down, back and forth to Basildon. And the guy who I used to race alongside in his little Mini was the ambulance driver. So you know you can drive quick at least. so funny. So the first thing I said to this ambulance driver, I won't name him. He knows who he is. I was like, if I could have chosen anyone that I knew to drive this fast up to London, it would have been him. would have been him. I was like serendipity. Yeah, wow. So yeah, so we got with Dr. Ghosh, got given our plan, which then got changed because her leukemia was rarer than what they first thought, which was a second blow. That blow was really tough because they were basically giving us discharge letters to go home, do a lot of the chemo as outpatients. And then they took those papers away, like physically took them off and said, you'll be in patients for best part of the year. Wow. Yeah. there's a quote that says something like, something about a storm and you have to adjust your sails. And I don't really like quotes like that often, but that was so poignant at the time because I thought there's nothing I can do about this and we have to adjust what we thought was going to be reality, which was crap already. So it went from crap to shit really quick. So then we became elephants because it's called Elephant Ward. And she was furious with everyone. You know you see some of the adverts, these little smiling bald kids that are pottering around the hospitals. She wasn't like that. She threw stuff. She punched people. She hated everyone up there. And these lovely patient elephant nurses were just like, she'll come around. We'll make friends with her. And I remember looking at them thinking, we are three months in and she still hates you. But they were right, it's like her second home. I mean, hopefully I'll never have to stay out there ever again in my life. But we go back and it is like home. And we're incredibly lucky to be that close to Great Ilmonds Street. It's the best, one of the best in the world. So I feel like it takes a long time to get round to the point of the... of setting up the charities. Every single thing you're saying is really important because you have to reverse engineer the journey to tell us about that and what inspired you, what motivated you, what drove you to go on to set up the charity in the first place. So take your time. So the bomb went off, we went up to Gosh, then we had to sort out this. So my son, Blessim's birthday was five days after she got diagnosed. So I remember that was the first time I had to leave her and come back. because he had a party organised. I guess at that point he's in reception, is he? going into year one? He started, he just started reception. So he's had big changes, bless him. And he was so little, and I thought he was so grown up at the time, but was so little. And we're a very sciencey minded family. So even when, how do babies get made? We have diagrams, like here's the science behind it. And so when he asked, when we had to explain to him what's going on, we had a whole... bone drawn out. had actual stickers of bugs, so there were beetles and stuff. We called them, these are the naughty cells. And we were like, right, we put all the naughty cells into the bone. And that's where Hattie's naughty cells are. So I think we used the word cancer because I didn't want it to be like the big C that no one ever says. like a taboo word that you couldn't say. Yeah, so the cancer cells are naughty cells. So we stuck these stickers, I remember doing it so vividly, stuck these stickers on a picture of a bone and said, right, there's now no room for the red cells or the white cells or... the platelets. So what we need to do is give her medicine to take away the bugs. So we took them off, took away the naughty cells and we are left, purposely left one on there and said, if we don't give her enough medicine to get rid of all of them, that one will come back a thousand, a million times again. So we have to keep giving her lots and lots of medicine for the next two years so that we can get rid of everyone. And he, luckily his little sciencey brain really understood what was going on. Obviously no one understood the answer to why. But even now he asked me why and she asked me why and there's no answer to that. It's just terrible luck. Indiscriminate isn't it? Yeah. So we did this explanation. Again, I say luckily, the first lot of medicine she actually took was called dexamethasone. Quite high doses of dexamethasone, which is nicknamed dex. And I said to him, I made that so exciting it actually makes me want to cry because it feels like an out of body experience. was like... you'll never guess what the name of her medicine is. And he was like, what is it? What is it? And I went Dex. And he was like, are you serious? He was so excited that she was getting this first dose of Dex was good. It was like the superpower. And on that birthday party, had capes, superhero capes that all of his friends and he wore. God, that's making me really emotional. Take your time, honestly. I'm hearing it and it's making me emotional. It's honestly, I think, How you were able to do that and break that down in that moment, I just sat here in admiration of you. I think that's honestly incredible. I think the science really helped because I think I was able to split between being mum, mum -a -lion, mum -fierce, to being like, I'm now medical, I'm now Hattie's medical lead. And I remember saying to some of the nurses, like, this is my job. I've been given this job and I have to double check what you're doing. I have to double check what you're saying. need to all the protocols. And even the consultants used to pull me out of the room to do the ward rounds because they'd be like, mum is involved. And that title, mum, became like you'd see you have to buzz yourself on and off the ward. And they'd say, who is it? And you'd say, Hattie's mum. And that title for me at the time was the biggest privilege I'd ever been given in my life. to be the mum was there was nothing else like it. So yeah, to guide him through understanding it felt, I did feel quite empowered to be able to do that. I guess that's such a big part as well of the advice and the support that you give to other families now that are going through this. the fact that you've lived through that yourself and took that approach, I would imagine maybe it doesn't work for everyone. No, it definitely doesn't. Yeah. But my advice to them now is this is what we tried. Every single time I speak to a parent is they know their child best. Don't ever doubt that you are an expert in your child and you might sometimes not have a clue on it if they're going through with when their emotions all over the place. But ultimately you will know your kid better than anyone else. Isn't it strange as well? Before kids I would have said no, there's like... science or how can anyone be that different or how can you be so in tune to a human being that you are not them so how would you know? There is that. You have this intuition about your own kids and I've seen it play out usually through my other half who's incredible at picking up what's going on with our kids. just and I don't know if it sits more with mums than it does with dads. I would say maybe. I don't know if you agree with that on I feel like I have to be really careful because I am the mum so I've never seen the dad's point of view. But I do think, like have tingles and then they'll ring or they get stressed or they hurt themselves. I feel different. I think, and as a guy maybe I can say, I do think there's a difference. Yeah. Look, I'm so connected to my kids but there is a different connection between mums. And I think the connection with us emotionally sometimes isn't helpful. that slightly less emotional connection perhaps with dads is actually really helpful, especially in heated moments. Sometimes it is useful to remove the mom and the dad, sort it out, you know. So I think we've both got our roles, but that motherly instinct, I think, as talking from the mom's side, All you can do is say subjectively, this is my own experience and in context, but yeah, we're both sat here, I'm a dad, you're a mom. Yeah. That's our opinion, but I'm sure a lot of people listening would side with that. Yeah, I think so. Okay, so we're now at Great Ormond Street Hospital, going through the treatment. was it a year of treatment? Talk to us about what that was actually like, living that experience. It was meant to be 10 rounds of the most intensive stuff, which you have to recover from in between. So was essentially 10 months. and then the gaps in between made it 12 months. It was almost 12 months to the day. And we were out for, I mean, I thought we came home, but we were out for about three days at a time, if that. And then we, I mean, we said we came home for Christmas, but looking back, we were home for six hours. So we drove back. My mum threw Christmas dinner at us. I said to everyone, everyone down the beach, we need to go to the beach, walk the dogs, pretend like it's Christmas day. Do all the traditional shit that Yeah, we did. And then we drove back like six hours later. Wow. So we were home bits and bobs and in and out of South End a lot. which I was, I mean, they hate me out there because I was so fierce up there. But it's just fear. was just fear. just took it, it was over control. I hate the over. I was very controlling because that was all I could do to overcome the fear of anything going wrong. my core belief was that if I let something go wrong, I'm never going to forgive myself. So I had to be on top of everything. So every medicine, every, every bit of advice, every rule was followed to the T and then I got to know the, I got to know the chemo's got to know Hattie so well with it. Like you could say I can smell a temperature coming on. but you can, you can feel it. now she was a 36 four every time. And the second it went to 37 to our new I know, and then the rule is that once it goes over 38, you've got to get into hospital within an hour. So you do middle of the night runs, which again, any oncology parents listening know the dread of waking up and you just look at that thermometer and it's 37, eight and you know it's coming and you might be in there for a week more. Yeah, it can turn really fast. So they have central lines in, which is a little device that goes straight into the top of their heart to always put in and out the chemo, take the blood, blah, blah. and because it's in their blood system, sepsis is a massive risk. So the second that the temperature comes on, it could just be a virus, could be a little bacterial infection. But there is a chance it could be sepsis. So you have to get in there really quick and they start antibiotics immediately and then test if it's going to be a Lyme infection. That's them. Yeah, and that's what I've always come to realise now. If you're there and you're being tested, they will try and test for the worst possible outcome and then reverse engineer it back, won't they? Yeah, which is always the way to... I think is always the way to go rule out the bad stuff first and then you work backwards. she's still one, like going through this transition one. from her transition from one to two years old, the majority of that has been in and around the hospital going through this treatment. that must be like, it's such a... To say it's hard is an understatement, it, to go through that? again, I feel like your pragmatism... I don't know if there is one, because again, it's more feeling. I don't know what it is. There's just no way you can describe It's sort of a mixture of overwhelming, really scary, and it's so exhausting. Like I probably slept in Great Ormond Street. She turned into a night owl because her clocks just went back to front. circadian rhythm is just fucked, it? And then she had so many blood transfusions, she got nicknamed the vampire because she was up all night and she drank all this blood. So funny. But those wards, those wards, like, again, until you see it, it's so strange because you come out, you come out of the room and you've got these kids on scooters, full speed, with their drip stands attached and their parents running behind them. And they sort of go round the nurses station where they play hide and seek and... They're adorable. I they're they're just, I think the kids cancer wards, mean, whether or not it would ever work, but should be mixed with the adult ones because they don't feel sorry for themselves. It's exactly what I was thinking. They are detached from that feeling of like self pity. They just want to, they just want to feel good. And in that moment they will do whatever comes from that. that's the, that's the key word is in that moment because there have been times where she's been hooked up to morphine and she didn't move. She sat in her buggy. she wouldn't even let us cuddle her and she'd play with the side of her cheek. That was it. That was the movement all day. But the second she felt okay again, morphine was down, she'd be on a scooter. And her brother was amazing at that because we, so we managed to talk the school into letting him come up on Wednesdays because she was only seeing him on the weekends. So he came up on a Wednesday and that, and he was her medicine because she was so excited to see, yeah, literally. So excited to see him and then she'd be off the bed and they'd be playing and she'd chase him and then he'd play hide and seek. and he was so well on a Wednesday, lot of the other kids would come out and he'd be playing with a few of them. And I get flashbacks because there were a couple of kids, he got on really well with them, they're not here anymore. So he ended up coming to little funerals with us. It's just awful. There's some bits of it that are so traumatic and so sad, I almost can't put into words what we went through because we lost... mean, if you live somewhere for long enough, you end up with neighbours. So they were in the room next to us. And we're all sort of Essex -based or London -based, so we've got similar stories growing up. then, so you end up laughing and roaring laughter with these other mums on the ward about, I mean, horrendous teenage stories. I mean, really funny. But you're delusional because you haven't had any sleep. You're all stressed out. And I remember, I just remember there was a couple of, like, but they're still best friends of mine. And you stand out in your dressing gown, essentially, on a corridor laughing about... snogging people in under 18s clubs when you're 15. Yeah, so we made friends but then because of that when they lost their kids we lost, we lost it. Yeah, which extended, community is probably the best way of describing it isn't it? It's this community that you're building. I think people's general experience in hospitals is that you're in there and you just want to get out as quickly as humanly possible. So maybe chatting to someone and sharing those life experiences. You won't even have the platform to do that, but when you're there for the time that you were, how can you not? It's human nature to wanna have connection. And it's hard as well, the dynamic between you and your daughter, you're not having adult conversations, are you? Most of the time. And when you are, it's probably with a nurse that's talking about medication or whatever, administering something. So those moms become your... You're kind of trying. And I've always said, again, I am the mum, so I focus more on the mums, but I've always said, if you get, you can have a two minute conversation with another oncology mum and it's worth a thousand other conversations. It's like therapy, would imagine. it's just the nod of, doing, and everyone goes, I'm fine. I'm like, don't fucking bullshit me. I know what you mean, but that little snippet of just understanding empathy, you know, is, yeah, it's priceless. Well, all of those experiences have obviously shaped, again, what it is you're doing now. So you said, so essentially 12 months that your daughter was going through this. In Great Elm Street. In Great Elm Street. 12 months at home. Yeah. And then, so what happened within those, the 12 months we were home, and to be fair, the whole 24 months is we had everybody's help. So the golf club had raised some money, so I didn't have to worry about money. We went to centre parks for nothing because someone did a fundraiser. like a big tree house for nothing. And then we got, mean, even my lovely best friends, she was vomiting everywhere. So I would wash everything and they'd dry the washing for me and fold it put it back in my doorstep. Like everything, and then everything in between. And as she was coming to the end of treatment, people were still offering these lovely things like, I'm going to raise some money or I'm going to do this. So I started saying, we don't need it now, but do want to pass it on to another friend that I know very closely? And then I'm... Thought about it for about six months once my daughter had finished treatment because I did think if I set this charity up there's no going back. So I had a lot of therapy about that and whether or not I wanted to and also where was it coming from which took me a long time to realise it was coming from guilt, was guilt because she was still around. So every September when I buy her new school shoes and she goes up a year I have a moment of I get that but not a lot of those kids on that ward. The parents don't get it. So it was coming from guilt and grief probably. Anyway, yeah, so then I decided, solid, let's give it a go. If it doesn't work, doesn't work. And so those offers that were still coming in then got funneled into these new families that were still going through it, or new ones that we met. And then it's literally snowballed since then because people need support. They need someone on the end of the phone to, so when they shout a help, sometimes they go, my gosh, help, and then you're like. What do you need? And they go, I don't even know. So I've realized one of my biggest things is gift buying. So I can listen to someone in March saying, I really fancy this. And I've got it picked for Christmas, ready to go. And I think that's the thing is if you can listen to where someone's at and what their interests are and what they need, I've now got into a good position to be like, we can do this, this, or this. Which one's going to help the most? And feel free to say yes to all three. Yeah, it's almost it's almost hearing something that's something from someone that's unable to articulate what it is they need and disseminate it into something. Yeah. So we're not always talking about gifts. Stuff. actually, most of the time it isn't about gifts, because a lot of big charities will give toys, say presents. Plastic toot. And you end up with so much stuff. Like ride on cars. No one's got any room for that. So we try and go, I try and go in with like practical, fun, a distraction, and then like something supportive. our counselling, the counselling stuff, I'm always, take the counselling, do you the counselling? Which I try not to be too pushy about, but I'm a massive advocate for the counselling. And again, if any of the oncology parents are listening, the counselling before the shit hits the fan. is for me is I try really hard to set them up when actually they're doing okay. Maybe they're in the middle of treatment and everything's settled a little bit because there's so many aspects to it. If you know the name and the voice of the counsellor, when something does go wrong, it's an easier phone call. Those boundaries or barriers are really broken down aren't they? So you're not going through the getting to know you stage, which we all have to do. It's completely different but I have had therapy for last five years. And my advice to people is everyone should be seeing a therapist. there's limitations to that and there's barriers because there is a cost to it. And the waiting list, if you try and go down the NHS route is shockingly long. But yeah, to get ahead of something in the times where you don't need it, just ensures that when something happens, because it is when something happens that will challenge you. And sometimes you need to go and see one or two different therapists to find the one. Don't walk into a bar. and just start chatting to someone and immediately get on. You don't have to go through a couple to realise, this is the person I need. We're all human, aren't we? It's not you're chatting to an AI or robot that's prescribing these things. You're having a conversation with someone and that's the trick. That's, guess, where the parallels are. Counselling, therapy, whatever the catalyst is for you needing to have that conversation. You need to be able to resonate and vibe with someone. Yeah, definitely. So that's really good advice. You started in 2018. Is that right? The charity was founded in 2018. So we're six years on now. Yeah. Which is incredible. Did you ever think, when you start something like that, do you think about the longevity of it or is it just day by day, month by month, year by year and see where you get to? Is there a bigger plan than just, I want to support families going through this, kids going through this. Or do you think about, here's where I want to be in five years? So I'll do a bit of both because I think when I said it I was thinking I would like to be able to have the means to support every child that goes through Southend. So if they get diagnosed through Southend Hospital we will have them. We will cover them. And then we did that. So then it was like can we reach out and do some of the Basildon kids and we're getting there. What I've now realised is I'm only one person. So the family support side of things needs to grow, which means I'm going to have to put out a job advert and employ somebody and essentially pass off my responsibilities to them because it would be nice to extend our help to Broomfield Hospital kids too because they're such a big area they've actually got. more than Southend or Basildon not put together but they've got a lot more kids out there and no support. So I say no support obviously there are charities that are helping but I think the way that we do things is slightly unique and that probably is because I'm driving it. yes the vision is there and there is a little bit of me that would like to sit in a room full of big charity CEOs eventually if we have a big team. I want flexible working to be paramount for everybody that works with Gold Geese. And I want there to be a real passion behind the charity because I think as they get bigger they turn into businesses and that passion drops. And I don't ever want to lose that. It started because of that little dot that needed everybody's help. And every child is as important as she was at the time. Is, is, but was at the time. So yeah, there is a bigger vision. It'd be lovely to be an Essex -based charity, but I just have to be careful that is that ego -based or driven by a, yeah, that would be fun, rather than are we needed? Because we're definitely going to be needed in Brunfield. We're definitely needed in Basildon and Southend. So I don't want to extend anywhere that we're not needed because that is not, it's not. That's not how I driven. Yeah, driven by ego. There's always a risk of that, isn't there sometimes? Is there ego attached to it that could be the motivator to push that? From where I'm sitting, and I'm sure everyone listening to this, don't think that's even on a question if it was mine. I just go check myself. That's because I've been in counselling for a long time. But there you go. Actually understanding the motivation for why you want to do stuff is important before you do it. Instead of getting two years down the line and going, shit, I was driven. completely by the wrong things of doing it. And also I think with rewarding jobs, it's such a boost of like some days I, some days it's really, it's just really sad. There are really difficult days. But then if you nail, if you nail the right gift to the right kid or the right, the right support to someone, especially as people come to the end of treatment, have, people have said to me, I literally don't know what I would have done without you. Yeah, what an amazing thing Which is so rewarding that that's where I have to check myself. Like is that, is that. I get that. get that. I think therapy does that. Yeah. Therapy definitely forces you to think, in the mirror. Yeah. Where is this coming from? I feel it's incredibly healthy. And what I like as well about the way you describe that is remembering where you came from. And that's actually considering those, there's people that listen to this, that the whole podcast is around people that want to change their relationship with work as well. and for you, I think that change, you know, happened completely from left field. And now what you're doing, yeah, it's, It's work, but there's so much more to it than that as well. But what you were talking about, remembering where you came from, what are your values? What's the core? What's the foundation of where you were? as you scale and as you grow, they're lessons that can transfer to whatever you're doing in life. Just remembering where you came from. That's really important. the purpose as well, which I think translates to every business, doesn't it? What's your purpose? What's your focus? And coming back to that core message, essentially we want to be there. differently for every different family. So if they don't need financial support, why on earth would we turn up with vouchers or food? It doesn't mean anything to them, but what they might need is way more time. They might need a couple of hours of chatting to someone who gets it. Yeah. Because they've got, maybe they've got lovely friends around them, but no one really gets it until you're there. Because yeah, you don't, what I really liked about when I was looking through your website and the collateral where you promote the service that you provide is that it's bespoke. It's tailored for the family because not everyone can't prescribe the same thing for everyone. God, no. I always say, so when I stand up and speak in front of big audiences, I always say that we can give them a Nintendo Switch or whatever, PlayStation, but if they can't afford the food shop, what are we doing? Yeah. If anything, it's really insulting. Turn up with another balloon or another toy and they've already got a stash full of them. It's actually so unhelpful that you've just taken their time. It's probably done the negative rather than the positive. So yeah, so think it's keeping that in mind as we grow. Like, can we still deliver that? And this is where this family support person is going to have to help me. It's going to have to be the right person because I need them to understand that it's don't ever ask someone, how are you, if their response is going to be, I'm really shit, that you can't then follow up. with her. You know when someone says, you're okay? Yeah. You're like, well you don't really because... If I'm not okay, you're not going to do anything about it. What if I say I'm not? What comes next? Yeah. And I'm definitely a heart on my sleeve kind of person. Some people say, how are you? And I go, I'm rubbish. They're like, sure. didn't really actually want the answer. my God. Yeah. I think don't ask me then. Why'd you ask? Yeah. So can you talk to me about the support that Gold Geese does provide to families? Because I think again, a lot of people that know of you and the charity will be aware of it, but for people that don't, and it's the first time hearing about Gold Geese or Maybe they just don't have never looked under the hood other than seeing like your incredible branding and the way that people in the community get behind promoting your service. But what do you do for families? You've given us some idea, but. So I'll give you a couple of examples. I think it's easy to say, because there's a few things that we do. we do this sort of peer to peer support throughout. So when someone's newly diagnosed, that bomb going off is so difficult to navigate that. We're sort of there to gently, like you're not by yourself, let the dust settle, taking the information that you need and then we'll be there to do, that's like a weekly check-in. How we're doing, how we're going, are you home, are you in hospital, what do you need? Food is like, let's get on top of this relationship building at the beginning. So that's more sort of time chatting and then building the relationship to be like, a lot of the boys with leukemia are on it, they weren't treatment for years. So to build that foundation of trust and gold geese are here, have us in the back of your mind. That's the start. Then throughout treatment, they can have like, say for example, birthday gatherings, trips. Trips where the family, if they've got multiple kids as well, the kids at home are going off to school or they're going to grandma's, whilst the kid is in hospital that's not very well, gets all the attention from the parents, obviously. So we try and do like sibling stuff too. The siblings will get little presents now and again, or we did a boys bowling event for the brothers, not for the... Pauly children. Which they were like, whoa, is it just me that's invited? Which was lovely. So we try and make a bit of a fuss of the siblings around the kid that's Pauly, because they love it. So I mean, I've made friends of a teenage girl who she thinks are great, because I go straight over and hug her first when we see her. And she'll get a little gift because she's a bit older, so she'll get something extra compared to her little But I can imagine the siblings are overlooked, because yeah, by the parents, they have to be. It's a byproduct of the... the circumstance isn't it really so that's a lovely thing to be able to focus on them. Yeah and I've got my mum's thanks for the sibling stuff because she was the sibling of a very poorly Great Ormond Street brother and she remember her pulling me to one side she was like do not take your focus off of Dexter and I remember feeling so furious with her like like I haven't got enough on my plate yeah and she was so right she's so right the siblings need just as much attention yeah as the poorly kids do so So throughout treatment, we are constantly offering counseling if it's needed. And that's where everyone, mom, dad, brothers and sisters, and then, obviously like gift deliveries, distractions as well. A lot of them get needle phobic because they get prodded and poked so much at the beginning. So we will do like fidget stuff delivered and give that to the community nurses too. And then end of treatment stuff is not usually big. either a party if they want it or a celebration as a family like lovely theatre tickets and a night up in London or we send them over to a lovely hotel in the middle of nowhere with a pool so they can all just chill and like you know just be together and it will be organised and taken care of. Sadly we have to do bereavement support which again is whatever they need. We've helped cover some costs of the extras at funerals that they wanted and organising venues or flowers even when they're just completely overwhelmed, they're in hospice and we just, I just gently say, if there's a job that I can do, let me do it. And then I'll send through happy to collect flowers, happy to organise food. Like I actually don't use the word happy, I use the word privilege. I'll be privileged if you let me have a job and let me take that off your hands. And what I tend to do is try and, know, like swans deliver things nice and slowly. act like that under the water. I'm like, my gosh, this is really stressful. So much pressure. So yeah, so we do bereavement care as well. I guess the face of it, the delivery of it, you have to be mindful of that, don't you? Because you are there to support. You are not there to project your shit onto No, rubbish, no. And I can come across like a lunatic sometimes. If you saw me in a work setting, it's so much calmer than I am normally. But I think that is because I'm all about authenticity and being human but in those circumstances you have to portray calm and have to portray... And it's also what they need because I've turned out sometimes and there's an F -bond will be landed straight away and I've had so much so many conversations about strippers and and 10 parties gone wrong and stuff because they need they feel like some parents need the exit or they need a distraction. get that completely. Even in Haven's Hospice over their child's laying in the next room and we're laughing about something. completely inappropriate. But that's what they've needed at that time. It's still human beings, they? It's really in the room, isn't it? Yes, of course. Yeah, so there are a couple of nice examples that I love. We had a musician who was going for a bone marrow transplant, which you're stuck in a hospital room by yourself essentially for about six to eight weeks minimum. And I was like, right, let's get you on stage. We need to get you on stage because he just loved music. And it was great, not like a teenager that was wanging around, not being very good, he was brilliant. So we got 200 guests, we got a bouncer, we got a confetti cannon, balloons, lasers, smoke machine, a singer to come alongside with all the amps, everything. So we gave everyone wristbands, hats, so that it felt like a little mini festival gig thing. And as he went into bone marrow transplant, was what, they were the stories he was telling to the nurses and he'd taken up some wristbands to give to the nurses. And just that level of... We can't help in bone marrow transplant. can't do anything. We can't even send stuff up really. They're not allowed takeaways. Because everything has to be so strict with infection control. But we could do the gig before. So that's what we try and do things at that. That's one of my favorite stories. I really tell that one quite a lot. It's so good. And again, it's that tailored approach, isn't it? But where do those ideas come from? Is that just, okay, here's something that we feel... Because again, that in itself is a skill set. Being out, it comes from disseminating what you said earlier doesn't it? Someone having something that you can disseminate into a gift which is, setting that up is a gift in itself to be able to give to someone. And like said, privilege to able to do just walk them out of nowhere normally. That's a skill set. I didn't realise that event planning was a job when I was younger but if someone had said you can organise parties for a living, that is probably where I would do that? Yeah, yeah. Most of the time I say, yeah, what do you want? How do I do this? So a girl, we did an end of treatment party for one of our, again, older girls, because they know what they like by then. So I'm like, right, mood board me up. Tell me what you want, what your favourite colours, what is a definite no -no. And then pulling those bits together to make that like her end of treatment party, not just some random. vanilla thing that could be rolled out to anyone. Yeah, yeah, it does come from my head, but again, that's probably my mum with her ideas. It's passed over to me because I wake up in the middle of the night with good ideas sometimes. Yeah, that's great. It's like problem solving, being creative, all these things as skill sets that you're using to just provide this amazing service. and like I said to you about the ADHD stuff, I recently I mean, I haven't got a full diagnosis, but I've had all the first checks that I'm basically a lunatic. So the ADHD side of it is my brain loves a new problem. It loves a challenge. So if I can see that someone's struggling, someone's not coping well with this, and these are their tastes, and these are what they like to do, what they don't like to do, I could then go, my brain loves it to figure out the solution to that problem. Like, how do we make this fun? So yeah, so it helps with my dopamine fixes. Let's sidebar for a second then, because you mentioned ADHD and you mentioned it before the podcast too. What led to you getting started on that path to being diagnosed? Obviously there were signs that ADHD could be something. So what made you go down that route to try and get a diagnosis? Overwhelm. Okay. And burnout. Yeah. And then a penny dropped, it was like... not everyone does that. Yeah. And then I, there's been numerous conversations now with friends where I am, I have clearly made friends with people who are as crazy as me because we speak at 100 miles an hour. We all speak over the top of each other and all of our children are quite high energy too. Right. So I think what happened was these conversations about ADHD and some of the kids was all of us were sitting at the top as the parents going, I think they do that too. And then we'd look at each other and be like, God, yeah, this is why we're besties. So these, had like Tasmanian devil friendships as the moms and then these Tasmanian devil children as the, so, but it was the negative impacts of it that were, that drove me to thinking, I don't think I can carry on like this. Because it is seriously like a dopamine chase. And if that comes from stress and overworking, yeah, it's not going. You mentioned one of the previous episodes before we started recording with Dr Zoe Watson. Amazing woman. think she's absolutely incredible. And I think she really shone a light on the kind of double -edged sword that ADHD can be too. Because I think the stigma around it, maybe it's previously a taboo topic to talk about it or something that maybe was kind of just plastered onto people. that maybe had behaviors that were just not seen as normal or stereotypical. But there is a catch -22, which is for all of the positives that come from it, there is burnout. There is, or like a higher chance of burning out. And when you're working in something that you can just sink your passion into. Yeah, you're up until three o 'clock in the morning on your laptop. When, it's not nine to five. And especially when you're working for yourself, whatever capacity that is, you don't clock in and you clock out. Your brain works overtime, plus ADHD, I can imagine there's never a time where you are switched off. So how do you put boundaries in place? It's taken me a long time. you got them in place now? have got some in place now. haven't completed it yet? No, because I there's always room for growth. So I have now got a work phone that's got a lovely gold case on it. Brilliant. So if I'm on that at home, the children, it's a sign that I'm working so I don't get interrupted because I get completely overwhelmed when I get interrupted. That's really And then I've got a personal phone so I can now regulate how much I'm on stupid social media. on my personal phone, which I can then regulate, whereas on my work phone, there isn't as a limit as such. So you can imagine the two Instagram following things. One is filled with absolute tiff for myself, and then the other one is filled with all of the children that we follow, a lot of child accounts, the research stuff, all the go-gold, big accounts, the thing. So I can separate the two things from work phone to home phone, which has really helped, because I can turn it off. So it's a really good bit of advice actually. I used have two phones and then stopped because in my head it was like from a productivity perspective, switching phones all the time but actually everything starts to creep doesn't it? So when you can literally turn a phone off and then say work is done but I love that, just a visual representation for your kids to know your mum's working. Mummy's working, yeah. They never interrupt me on that yellow phone because they know it might be a parent or the hospital or something. That's been really handy. And also you say it creeps in, it creeps in really quick because I just do this or I just do that or I just open my emails. Or if you're going to bed, don't open the bloody emails. And now it's given me the sentence of, I don't look at that over the weekend. So I apologise, it's taken me till Monday to get back to you, which is a normal thing to do with work. Yes. Because I get emails on Sunday and they're like, did you my email yesterday? Yes, I did. Thank you very much. That's a really good boundary to have in place because we're now living in a world where people's expectations are just why are you not getting back to me? People get angry about that. And I'm not, I'm guilty of it too. Like I want to send an email, I want to hear back straight away. But I wouldn't have the expectation that someone else should be sat there waiting for me to respond within seconds. we all work together to slow that down, we'd all chill out a bit because I think we gear each other up as well. I think we stretch each other out between different industries. But yeah, I'm trying to stand firm on that. I feel like I plant my feet on the ground when I'm like, it might take me a couple of days to respond. draw in the line. Yeah, then my poor ADHD brain goes, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget. Don't get distracted. I love that. I had the thought this morning, actually, the kind of theme or the sentence, the statement I make more than any other in my house to my kids is two seconds, two seconds. And usually it's because I'm checking an email. Usually it's because I'm checking... something where the justification is it's work. But like anything, if your thumb will go to Instagram and I'll go two seconds and there is no way that what I'm looking at is more important than what my kids need from me in that moment. Therapy as well has taught me to say like, I'm mindful of what I'm doing, ask yourself in that moment, is it worth it? Is what you're doing worth it and worth missing out what is potentially going on elsewhere? The answer is always more often than not going to be no. Especially on the phone. Be kind to yourself with it too. I'm not saying I beat myself up. Yeah, god I beat myself up with the phone. That's been one of the biggest things this year that I've managed to, I wouldn't say I've tackled but I'm getting there. Okay. And what I do is a bit like an addict is I phone one friend in particular who probably hear this and I say I'm on 47 minutes on Instagram today, personal use, to like almost judge myself out loud. That's too much. It's almost like having a sponsor. Yeah. Phone him up and was like, I had a really bad day, I'm on five hours. He goes, what are you doing? Terrifying how quickly it adds up though, isn't it as well? You're doing an hour in the morning, hour at lunch, hour in evening. You want three hours. And like, that's a part -time job. No, no. And then I say, have a good time for anything. Yeah. So that's been tackled. It's being tackled. Okay. So you've got those boundaries. You've got two kids, you're a single mum. Yep. having that work -life balance, I guess we're talking about it with the boundaries that you've set too, but it sounds like that's a work in progress as it will always I think it will always be a work in progress, yeah. Because even if I flash forward a few years, if they move out and go to uni, I'm going to have to keep those boundaries in place that don't work 13, 14 hour days because you're bored and lonely. Yeah. Which I probably will end up doing, but... I'm ready for that problem. think it's important too that boundaries don't just have to be there because you've got kids and like having that shut off between work and life is important regardless of whether you've got children in your life or not so when they are when they're flown the nest and when you're there yeah it's still important to have them because then you the time for yourself don't you? And my productivity if I get my butt down that gym once or twice a week my productivity is so much better I'm calmer at home I eat better yeah So even carving that time out, it does positively affect everything else. And I guess again, your lived experience both through the time that Hattie was going through treatment and just setting boundaries in life now is all advice that you can anecdotally share to the parents that you're working with too. I would imagine without ramming it down their throats to say you must do this, clearly. to say this is what for me. a lot of us have, when you're on treatment, a lot of things freeze. parents have said to me that they haven't cried or they haven't got angry or they haven't and I was like dude I'm with you. Like I didn't cry for years and I had a lovely friend who I think I broke her. used to go round her house and I would tell her all of this emotional stuff. She would burst into tears and I'd be like god I feel better thank you so much. Like poor woman. Pretty scarred of her life. But she would cry on my behalf almost and I think a lot of those things freeze so your own self -care freezes. and then your emotional stuff freezes because you don't really don't have time. You just don't have time to do any of those things. So I try and say to the parents that is again, that is okay. Like you just got to ride it. Just get into the end of treatment and ride it and try and have, if you get a good half an hour, take the bloody good half an hour. And if someone offers you a massage, try and take the massage, you almost can't. I mean, some of the parents, cannot put in a counseling session every week for an hour because if that kid spikes the temperature in the hospital, they have to cancel. So it's a balance, isn't it, of what can I do or what can I write out? write it out. Sometimes you just gotta go with it, haven't you? Definitely. But before I knew that you, Katie, were behind Gold Geese, all I saw every September, and we're recording this in September, which is a big time for the charity. And so thank you as well for taking the time to do this, because this is like eating into your time. Hopefully it will help to promote it too. But before I ever knew you were behind it. Everything in Lee, I would say was gold. The community and the support that you have fostered in our little part of the world is incredible and I'd say it's wholesale. Like everyone that I speak to, I'm sure there could be more people that jump on board so if they're listening to this, bloody do it. was that a conscious thing or did you just, did it start with people offering and then you realised that obviously you're not government funded. You need... contributions, need donations to be doing the amazing work you're doing. So how much of that is organic for you being known in the community and then how much of that are you having to bang the drum and go around and... think it's a bit of both. Yeah. I think we've been incredibly lucky that, so the sentiment behind the name of the charity I think really helps. So gold is the children's cancer colour, the ribbon. So obviously breast cancer is pink, children's cancer is gold. And then... We have the geese fly down to Lee every year, actually in September, which is completely coincidental. Really, is it? I've noticed that happening again now. It's a worldwide campaign, Gold, for September, so it's just coincidence. But the geese flying together as a team, I think, really got people on board. Well, I hope it was that reason, because it felt like part of a bigger community. And the way that geese fly, I mean, I obviously read into it way too much. But the way that they fly is such a network of, if you're feeling weak, you drop back. essentially, if you haven't got the means or the time to fundraise or get involved, drop back, because someone else will take it. So we've had businesses that, over the six years, sometimes they've gone all out, and it's amazing. And then a couple of years later, they'll go quiet, and then they come back again. And that is what geese do, is they take it in turns. And I think that message has come across really well. So I think we've been quite lucky. And again, we've never deviated from the message. Go Gold is about awareness. It's not about fundraising. So if you can't fundraise or you don't want to, just stick a poster up. If you don't want to put a poster in front of your shop, stick a post up on social medias. And I think because we give that flexibility, a lot of charities are always asking for money. Yeah. And people, especially locally, they get asked for all the school PTAs. They get asked for smaller charities, big charities, someone doing a marathon run, everyone. They always get asked. So we sort of come in and say, the tiniest thing you can do, even if you have a turmeric latte that's yellow, stick it on your socials and tag us in, because that will help, that little post will help. And then all the way up to C2C putting a flipping train gold. Amazing. Yeah, everything helps. Is this the first year that's happened? the train being The train was two years ago. Two years So they said they'd leave it on for September and they've left it on the whole time. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's got millions and millions of passengers on that train. So that's been huge. That was one of the big ones. But everything in between, we've had gold photo walks where lots of lovely local photographers come and take lots of pictures and people join in and they just spot mustard, yellow or gold things and they take a little picture and put it online. Yeah, I think it's snowballed in such a lovely way that everyone wants to get involved. It's amazing. And do know what? Before I did some research ahead of speaking to you, I didn't understand the goose part. I just thought it sounded good. And then after looking at it last couple of days, makes complete sense and it resonates so much more as well. When you just take a moment to think, yeah, that really does. It really works nicely. feel like I've accidentally set up a legacy that one day I'm going to die and then everyone, when they see a goose... flock of geese, be like, reminds me of Katie. Do you know what? So I'm going to ask now, because legacy has come up in a couple of conversations I've had, is it important to you that you the legacy? important. I think about it every day. Why? I don't know. I think I've got a bit of an innate fear of dying. And I think when the kids were young, I remember thinking, please don't let me die until they're old enough to remember me. That was quite a deep fear of mine. And so building a legacy that they can then, they can then like... hold in their hearts. Like it wouldn't ever be money. It would be more like, how does mommy make a cheese sauce? And like, my mom taught me this, that sort of stuff. the geese, I'm really grateful now that those geese will come back to Lee every year. And I really hope that my little legacy lasts. And you know what, Katie, for what it's worth as well, now you've explained where the geese part of the name has come from. Like yeah, the minute you hear that honking, the minute you see that flying V, I will struggle now to think of anything but you. So it's mission accomplished. There a poem, I should have brought it with me, there was a poem that someone, was an anonymous person wrote at beginning because Hattie was obsessed with, like I said, ducks and birds, she just loved the birds. And I wanted a game plan for that first dose of chemo to go in. And I remember we had a Facebook page, Hattie's Heroes it was called at the time, where people just wanted updates, they were friends, so they wanted updates. So we would post what was happening so that we didn't get a thousand questions. And when I pressed the go on the first chemo dose, I had put out a shout to everyone as like a team, and this might make me cry. I like, I felt like, I'm quite a spiritual person, I felt like if everyone thinks the same, they can channel the energy by thinking the same into that girl. And I got even people from all around the world, I put them on a map. and emailed them all and said, I need you all to think the same so that you're feeding into her. I had this drawing of these people that I'd like, you're representing Australia and you're representing Canada. And someone had written a poem about the geese flying over Great Ormond Street. Such a good poem. Anyway, I'll find it. Find it and then I'd love to share it when we share this as well. Yeah, that'd be really nice. And it said that she's got an army behind her. Yeah. then we were always focused, she was at the front. And that was the thing, in that hospital room, no one week came into that room. Said, if you need to cry, you get out. Get out, go and take your time. Go to the back, recoup and then come back in. Cause that room was about like, we're here to win. We're winning. Yeah, positivity, strength, all those vibes. I believed in it so much that it was like, if she's got this army behind her, where the weak ones will fuck off. She'll only have the powerful ones at the front with her. And I feel like it really helped me through. Katie, you are so inspiring. I'm sat here just like, it just emanates from you as well. It's, I can't imagine anyone and it's so awful that anyone has had to go through what you've had to go through and all the families that you helped support. I don't know, there are people in the world where you just feel like if it's, if it's happened to you and you've turned this into something so positive, then it's just an amazing thing. So. I sit here, I'm just so inspired and a little emotional talking to you it. do tend to make everyone cry when I'm fished out. It's just so lovely and you can't help but think about your own kids having to go through anything like that. It's just lovely speaking to you about it. I've got one more question which hopefully you'll have a good answer for and then I've got the closing question which is the question from my mum. if you've been... Love your mum. I've been slissened. I'm ready for your mama. So with the penultimate question then, it's really about how people can support Gold Gate's Nail. So we're in a big promotional time for the charity and for Child with Cancer globally anyway. But what can, if someone's listening to this, and I'm going to include myself as an example, someone's listening to this and thinking, I need to get behind this and I can do something. How do they do that? Where do they go? How do they do it? So where they go is if you come onto our website, Facebook, Instagram and message us, the best thing for us is for you to sit down and think, what can I do? What capacity can I do something in? What can I offer? It doesn't always have to be stuff. So if you've got a lot of followers online, that, I mean, we can work with that so well, because it reaches, if it can reach thousands of people, to tell them about the signs and symptoms. things like that. And then if you've got a shop front or you're working a school or an office or anywhere where you're around other people just to talk about gold geese and talk about childhood cancer, it's a little bit like meningitis awareness and sepsis awareness. When your kid gets sick, people often go, is it meningitis? No, is it sepsis? No. We just chuck in the question, is there a possibility it could be cancer? Very rarely is it. But for that to be in the back of people's minds, it does make diagnosis better and faster. So anything, if you've got a lovely pair of yellow shoes, take a nice picture and tag us in. Yellow glasses, if you make something, like if you're a cake maker and you want to make a nice big yellow cake or gold cake. So it really is, it's awareness. It's all about awareness and trying to somebody says, you heard of Gold Geese charity? That is, that'll do. So we've got like next week, there's a lovely mum that's doing a baby sensory. in Rayleigh. And so all the babies are coming in in the little yellow and gold outfits. even that, if no one brings any donations, that's a whole new set of new parents that have just been, I don't want to scare anyone with childhood cancer stuff because the signs and symptoms can be very similar to other viral infections and stuff. However, it's the consistency of it and the gut instinct of something's really wrong. And then just having it in your mind of like, does this need extra GP visit? Does this need... keeping an eye on for an extra couple of weeks. Because more often than not, a virus will come and go and the gets better. it's when they don't, then you just have it in your mind as a flag. That's what we're trying to do. Making it part of the conversation is really important, is removing that taboo. Because it's a, I'm going to swear, it's a fucking scary word. so scary. Like, to hear that is scary. being afraid of it doesn't mean it's not potentially there. you have, knowledge is power. Make sure you at least ruling it out. That's the key. And I think there's nothing more scary than you going into the GP for the third, fourth, maybe fifth time with one kid when you know full well you're not in there very often. Yeah. And they still don't know what's up. That is more scary than saying, we have a little think about cancer here? Yeah. Because getting it sooner helps not only the kid but the parents as well because the trauma that comes with late diagnosis, it's not always that it ends up as a bad outcome. I sometimes it does, but it's... The early diagnosis can help with pain. It can help with the journey, the process of the start, and the trust between the NHS and the parents. So I just think it's giving the parents the power to say, have we thought about leukemia here? Have we thought about brain tumour here? Yeah, there's lots of signs and symptoms. So if you have a little look, it's things like, so with the brain tumour, it's like constant vomiting in the morning. Dizzy spells. and eye starts wandering, that wasn't there before, behavioural changes, maybe up and down the stairs isn't quite as steady. It's things like that that if it happens once, obviously it's probably not anything serious, but if it keeps happening and you're in that doctor's a few times in a row, it's just having it there. Yes, it's a scary word, but it's not as scary as not knowing what the hell's going on and your kid's getting worse. Yeah. So yeah, I know, I always sort of bring the conversation mood down. No, not at all. I mean, this is what we're here to talk about and we're here to raise awareness. I think people find it difficult to link the photo of the little yellow shoes and that serious conversation with the doctor about, my kid got cancer? It feels like they're worlds apart, but they're not really because remembering the gold and the geese, some people go, I know it's a colour and I know it's a bird. my gosh, and I know it's the same letter. And they'll get there eventually and then think, let me just look on the page and let me just look at the signs and symptoms and let me add it up. And that's what we're trying to do. So the yellow shoes do link. Yeah. Even if you don't think they do. Yeah, they do. It's all that connection in the brain, isn't it? Yeah. And what I'll do on the back of this, rather than call out all your socials while we're speaking, is link the website, the... you. And the socials, obviously, to ensure people know where to go on the back of it. Right, closing tradition time. Yes. So this is a question from Mum. As always, I don't listen to these. No. So, she knows who you are and she knows what we're talking about. Okay. I have to apologise in advance all the time because it's my mum. I'm so excited. I have toyed with removing this, but people seem to like it. Let's see what happens. Hi Katie. With all your experience running your wonderful charity, what advice would you give to somebody? running their own business who put so much passion into it to avoid burnout. Thank you. Good question. we kind of covered this, not that mum would know that she's not sat here, but we covered elements of avoiding burnout. But I guess, yeah, as a general rule, how do you avoid it? So I literally bumped into someone who's starting up prevention. She said, God, I hate the social media side of things. And I think this bit of advice that I gave her probably applies across the board. There'll be bits that you love and bits that you hate that have to get done to run the show. And I said to her, Book the time, so this is social media was the example, book the time, say Wednesday afternoon, you've got two hours or an hour, that is the time you do social media. So set it up for the rest of the week, or get your pictures in, or get your content written and put in a place so that you just do it once. And I think that would be to avoid the burnout, is to try and be more structured than I've ever been. Is to say, Monday I'll do this, Tuesday I'll do that, and to to keep with the pattern, I think to have a pattern in business is when you start getting tired and stressed that I think the burnout will come because you'll just try and get everything done and forget the routine that actually works. So then bringing yourself back to, don't do that on Mondays, I do that on Thursdays and coming back to chat and chat obviously doesn't always work that way. I think that's really good advice. And when I speak to people, social media and like, it being a necessary evil for so many businesses and how they promote themselves. Like you can't really run a business now without having some presence on there. But scheduling things and just having a window of time where you say, you know what, rather than dreading this feeling that I need to go on there and come up with something, compartmentalizing parts of your week doesn't have to just be social media as you say. The roles, the responsibilities you've got, I think is a really nice way to describe I'm listening to you say back to me, it doesn't always work like that, does it? Or delegate. I've just learned how to. You give a job someone else, it's amazing. But isn't that hard as well when you've something, like you've kind of birthed this thing into the world. That's the perception isn't it? And it is true, but they just care in a different way and maybe they've got better boundaries. Yeah, probably. Because they didn't create it in the first paying me for this. Well there's that, Katie, thank you so much. Genuinely, not having spoken to you before, always come into, people come into the room and I'm like, I don't know you, so I hope that there will be like a connection and I'll enjoy. It's just been so lovely and you are genuinely so inspiring. And this is Michael. I'm sat here now thinking about ways that I can support what it is you're doing. If anyone wants to, I would just urge you to get in touch with Katie and we'll include all the links to websites and socials when we post the episode. But yeah, get behind it because it's genuinely incredible what you're doing. So thank you for that. Thank you for having me. Cool. Thanks for listening to Jobsworth. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to give us a follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and while you're there, if you could take two seconds to rate the show, that would be awesome. 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