Cancer-stricken British girl's 'Bucket List' is Internet hit
A cancer-stricken British teenage girl said Thursday she had been overwhelmed by messages of support from around the world after writing an online "Bucket List" of things she wanted to do before dying.
Alice Pyne, 15, created an Internet blog in which she described her fight against Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells.
"I've been fighting cancer for almost four years and now I know that the cancer is gaining on me and it doesn't look like I'm going to win this one," she wrote.
For her list, the teenager took inspiration from the 2007 film "The Bucket List", in which two terminally ill men, played by Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, draw up a list of things they wish to do before they die.
On her list, at the site www.alicepyne.blogspot.com , she has included making everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor, swimmming with sharks, meeting boy band Take That and getting a purple iPad computer.
Messages of support and offers of help quickly flooded her webpage and it became one of the most talked about subjects on microblogging site Twitter.
"Oh dear and I thought that I was just doing a little blog for a few friends!" she wrote after her site attracted huge attention.
"Thank you so much for all your lovely messages to me."
Pyne, who lives with her family in the northwest English town of Ulverston, revealed the management of Take That had arranged for her to see the band after reading her blog.
A group of local lawmakers have also joined forces with the Anthony Nolan blood cancer charity to encourage people to join its stem cell register.
(c) 2011 AFP
