A woman who packed “grab bags” of chemo essentials while going through cancer treatment herself has now handed over 40 of them for women starting theirs.
Maria Bailey, from Bridgend, hoped to raise £500 when she launched her Bailey’s Bags appeal in the summer. The total has now passed £4,000, she says.
Her own treatment for cervical cancer finished on 13 August, and she made up the bags during her treatment and recovery.
The first 20 went to the South West Wales Cancer Centre at Singleton Hospital on 10 September. They were handed over through Swansea Bay Health Charity, the health board’s official charity.
Another 20 were taken to Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff on Monday 5 October.
The bags are now being given to women having chemotherapy for cervical cancer in south Wales, Maria says.
What goes into a Bailey’s Bag
Each pink backpack holds the things Maria found herself needing on the ward: a fleece blanket, ginger tea, a neck pillow, pear drops and a water bottle marked with drinking times.
The backpack can also charge a phone from a power bank, because a treatment chair may be nowhere near a plug. Maria has said each bag costs around £92 to buy and pack.
“Never been so lazy”: Maria’s recovery after treatment
Since her treatment ended, Maria says she has “never been so lazy”. “I’ve worked all my life so this is alien to me,” she said.
She has an MRI scan in November to see how she has responded to treatment, and is “keeping everything crossed” that she will be cancer free.
Patients’ families get in touch about Bailey’s Bags
The feedback has been “incredible”, Maria said, especially from patients’ families.
The daughter of the first woman at Velindre to receive a bag got in touch to say her mother had phoned her, delighted with it, in the middle of her treatment.
Maria has also thanked the people who looked after her. She singled out Rhisiard Jenkins, a volunteer on the chemotherapy ward in Swansea who she said “kept me watered and well fed”, and “the brilliant radiotherapy team” at the cancer centre.
Bailey’s Bags on Instagram, and prostate cancer next
She says she has “dragged myself into the 21st century” to set up an Instagram account, baileysbags2026, where she posts updates.
In the summer, Maria said she hoped to extend the bags to men having chemotherapy and radiotherapy for prostate cancer.
Donations to Bailey’s Bags can be made through Maria’s fundraising page.
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