Cancer patient too ill to attend her graduation ceremony has it brought to her

LILLI WAS ABLE TO CELEBRATE JUST LIKE FELLOW UNIVERSITY OF HULL STUDENTS

- By DEBORAH HALL

A YOUNG woman from Hull who was diagnosed with cancer just weeks after completing her degree has received a special graduation ceremony in hospital.

Lilli Hales, 20, had already bought her graduation dress and was looking forward to officially marking the end of her studies at the University of Hull with family and friends. Things were looking good for the aspiring primary school teacher when she received confirmation of her 2.1 grade in Drama and Theatre Studies.

But towards the end of June, Lilli was admitted to Ward 33, the Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Unit at Castle Hill Hospital, after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

She said: "I'd been feeling unwell for quite a while, I was pale and I'd been having dizzy spells, so I went to my GP who arranged a blood test.

"I carried on organising things for university and working my part-time job at Starbucks, but when I was asked back to the GP surgery to receive my results, things started to move really quickly and I was admitted to the TYA Unit at Castle Hill the same day.

"It all felt a bit surreal, like I was in a dream that I was going to wake up from and then find out it wasn't real."

Lilli had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a type of cancer which affects the blood and is diagnosed in just over 3,000 people each year in the UK, according to NHS figures.