A doting County Durham father has turned down a £200,000 a year job to spend time with this two children who are both battling life threatening health conditions.
Matt Shaw, 39, has given up his job as a financial analyst and rejected a post in London with a £200,000 salary as he says "I don't know how long I have with them," reports The Mirror.
Matt, who lives with wife Tracy, 33, in Carville on the outskirts of Durham City, has already watched his eldest daughter Sophia, five, overcome a brain tumour. But now the brave youngster has cancer of the spine. And in a cruel twist of fate, the couple's second daughter, Delilah, three months, was born with hyperinsulinism, a condition that is estimated to affect 30,000 babies in the UK.
The condition means Delilah has higher than normal insulin levels in her blood and has to be fed every three hours. Matt claims medics have told him the chances of these two illnesses affecting his daughters at the same time are "billions to one".
He told The Mirror. "I asked the doctor what are the chances of this happening, you know the cancer coming back but in a different part of Sophia's body and then Delilah being diagnosed with this condition. He shook his head and said 'it's billions to one. I can't put a number on it', one of these things happening is rare enough in itself.
"The whole thing has been absolutely exhausting and devastating, but I've told myself that I'm done being sad, I have to try and stay positive for the girls and believe that we will get through this. Before this I was flying high in my career and during the pandemic I was offered a job down in London which would have paid around £200,000, but I just couldn't take it.
"The one positive of this whole process is that it has taught me how precious time is with my family, and being brutally honest I don't know how much time I have left with them. You can't put a price on the memories you make with your children."
It was following a camping trip in Wales in August 2020 that the then three-year-old Sophia began complaining of a headache. Scans a few weeks later revealed a tumour the size of a golf ball.
She underwent a successful operation to have the tumour removed and further scans in September 2021 returned clear. But a month later Sophia was recalled as doctors claimed they had spotted something suspicious on her spine.
Matt and Tracy were given the heartbreaking news that the cancer had returned and it was "only a matter of time".
Refusing to accept the outcome, the couple have launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for a variety of treatments to hopefully attack the cancer head on.
Matt said: "We want to try and keep life as normal as possible for Sophia so we don't let on too much about what is happening and we have to be brave ourselves. The doctors say that there is nothing they can do for Sophia this time, but we refuse to accept that the cancer will win this battle."
The pair claim they have already had success with holistic bio-resonance therapy, which uses electromagnetic waves to manipulate cells, and high doses of Vitamin C, which Sophia receives intravenously every week.
But the family need £125,000 to sustain this and fly to Spain or Holland to undergo dendritic cell therapy, which mimics the body's own immune system by releasing cells into the body trained to attack the cancer cells.
Matt said: "The thought of living in this world without either of my little girls is just not an option. We will do everything in our power to see both of them grow up and start families of their own."
