Prince William met with cancer patients and chief researchers at the opening of a new state-of-the-art treatment centre yesterday where he offered some touching words of reassurance to one mum suffering from the disease.
The Prince, who is president of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, unveiled a plaque to celebrate the opening of the Oak Cancer Centre in Sutton, London.
William was reunited with Matron Lorraine Hyde when he walked into the day patient ward, who he first met while on work experience with the Trust almost two decades ago.
Shaking her hand, the royal recalled: "I remember, it was about 18 years ago when I was here doing my work experience in those good old uni days."
William then spoke with breast cancer patient Eileen McMenamin 62, from South Croydon who was in the ward for her first transfusion, the Mirror reports.
She said: "It’s lovely to see you, I've forgotten all about what I'm having done. I have followed you and your mum since you were a baby."
William, who seemed delighted by her confession, said: "I'm glad you said that, some people say: 'What are you doing here?'"
Mrs McMenamin added: "It's a shame Kate isn't with you."
The mother-of-three was there with her sister, Tara Malone, who was also a patient at the Royal Marsden in 2009.
Mrs Malone admitted: "We were panicking this morning, we thought we were going to be late and miss the prince."
The Prince moved on to speak with other patients as he reassured one particularly inspirational patient that cancer had "picked the wrong person to mess with".
Emma Bishop, 38 was tragically diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last year but thanks to incredible ground breaking treatment at the hospital, the mother-of-two was able to run the London marathon for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and raised a whopping £100,000.
She said: "I was dying and we were terrified. The Royal Marsden and my super prof [her doctor, Sanjay Popat] have saved my life.
"Cancer treatment gives you time, time is quite simply the most precious resource we have."
She added that the new centre provides it's patients with hope which is "the greatest gift".
Later William spoke with leading researchers at the Kuok Research Centre, who showed him a CT scan of a patient with a tumour.
He listened while they educated him about ground breaking developments in liquid biopsy technology which can cleverly detect tiny amounts of cancer in blood samples.
Dr Susie Slater said: "He spotted it was a really big tumour, so he's obviously got a medical mind."
As the prince got ready to leave, he was greeted by a group of children from the staff nursery onsite who were wearing paper crowns and holding a banner reading "Welcome Prince William" as they waved him off.
William couldn't resist going over to say hello to the youngsters as he sweetly complimented one young girl on her strawberry dress.
William has been president of the Royal Marsden since 2007 after he took over the position which was previously held by his late mother Princess Diana.
The new centre, funded by the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, puts researchers and patients in the same building to speed up the development of new treatments and help diagnose more cancers at an earlier stage.
The Prince of Wales has been involved in the project from the beginning and laid the foundation stone for the new building in October 2020.
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