East Sussex schoolgirl celebrates GCSE results after beating cancer

A 16-year-old girl from Eastbourne, East Sussex, is celebrating her GCSE results today after recently beating cancer.

Lara Kyprianou-Hickman was undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Lymphoma while exams were taking place earlier this year.

Her mum, Sophia, fought to have her grades teacher assessed and has now paved the way for other seriously ill children to have the same option in future.

Lara said: “Covid started at the end of Year Seven and into Year Eight for me, so I missed out the whole of Year Eight.

“Year Nine was strange as we were all stuck in one classroom, Year Ten was normal but then I missed the whole of Year Eleven due to cancer, so it’s been very disruptive.”

When speaking of her plans for the future, she added: “I’m hoping to just go with the flow and whatever happens, happens.

“I’d like to do something with art - that would make me happy.”

Both mum and daughter have had a close bond throughout Lara’s battle with cancer and Sophia paid tribute to other families going through similar experiences.

She said: “Seeing a child go through cancer is probably one of the worst things you could experience.

“Being in the bathroom with her dad shaving her hair because she didn’t want to wake up every morning and see it on the pillow, seeing her fainting, seeing her throwing up. It was absolutely horrific.

“In hospital there were parents of kids with Leukaemia who have to do this for like five years. We had seven months of hell, so I just want to take my hat off to those people.”

Lara is now looking forward to college and will be celebrating with her friends tonight.

She said: “It’s cool to think when I was battling cancer I was also changing the law for other kids as well, so my time wasn’t just spent doing nothing, I was doing something really important to help other people.”

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