Grace Kelly, now 26, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in 2022, and is sharing her story as part of a Teenage Cancer Trust fundraising gig, which is headlined by Frank Carter and Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols.
The short film, which features: Grace, her partner Jack, and Grace’s best friend and bandmate Hannah, will be shown before the headliners perform.
In March 2022, Grace noticed a rash on her body which wouldn’t go away. She went to the GP multiple times and they were unsure what it was, and she was given antibiotics.
Grace later got a throat infection and as the lead singer of VENUS GRRRLS, she put it down to exerting herself.
“I thought I’d take a few days off to get over it, but my tonsils were ginormous,” Grace said.
“It was unlike anything I’d ever seen; it was like something out of a horror film. My gums also started to grow over my teeth.
“I went to the GP, and they thought it was tonsillitis and I accepted antibiotics.
“The next day I was struggling to breathe, and I went to A&E. I was given more antibiotics.
“The antibiotics didn’t help with my throat, but it cleared the rash on my back. I was also starting to get a pain in my ribs.”
Grace was referred to the Ears, Nose and Throat department at the hospital and she was given penicillin.
She says while the medicine made her feel a bit better, days later she felt ill again and she went back to her GP where she was given antibiotics.
Grace was then tested for glandular fever.
“I am originally from Watford, but my mum encouraged me to go to her house for a bit so that she could look after me,” added Grace.
“The day after I arrived, I got a call from the haematology team from St James’s University Hospital in Leeds to say that my white blood cells were five times higher than they should be.
“They said they needed to do more blood tests immediately and mentioned that they may need to do a bone marrow biopsy. I thought: ‘Oh, they think it might be leukaemia’.
“I returned to St James’s and every test was more and more bleak. My white blood cell counts kept rising. I had a bone marrow biopsy, and the results came back as abnormal.
“It was so scary, but my partner Jack was there with me every step of the way and he kept me sane.”
Shortly afterwards in July 2022, Grace was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.
Talking about when she was diagnosed, Grace said: “I zoned out and felt like I couldn’t hear.
“It was like I was having an out of body experience, but Jack had his hand on my leg, so that brought me back to the room.
“My parents were in the waiting room and it killed me to tell them. I felt like I had let them down.”
Grace needed chemotherapy and she had her treatment at the Teenage Cancer Trust funded unit for people aged 19-24 at St James’s University Hospital, which is staffed by the charity’s specially trained nurses and support workers.
Grace said: “I was in hospital for nearly six weeks. On the unit, you have your own room and Padma, Teenage Cancer Trust’s Youth Support Coordinator, told me I should decorate it.
“She printed off photos of my band and my boyfriend and laminated them.
“It made it feel more homely and less like a hospital room. We put them on the wall opposite my bed, so it was the first thing I saw in the morning when I woke up and it gave me a boost and gave me a shred of normality.
“Towards the end of my treatment, I was able to mix more with the other young people who were having treatment because I was less prone to getting infections.
“It’s hard to know who wants to chat on the unit and who doesn’t, but Padma was great at facilitating the initial conversations.
“Because of Padma, I met ‘the cancer girlies’.
“They offered me emotional support and they can understand what I am going through. We have a group chat and can talk about serious things but we can also just send cancer memes and have a laugh. We’re all healing together.”
Grace, who has just released Eighteen Crows with her band VENUS GRRRLS, said: “Our second or third single came out in the midst of all of my tests, so it was a very strange time.
“It was very difficult for the band too. We were a group of young girls who were pursuing our dream in music. Our song Violet State of Mind was played on Radio 1, so it was a bittersweet time.
“As a band, you rely on each other, and you know that you need to show up and commit for it to work. I knew through no fault of my own that I wouldn’t be able to do that for a while. I worried that they were going to move on without me.
“They told me that they would wait until I got back to continue. I still felt like I was letting them down, but they reassured me as much as they could.
“When I started treatment, it was intensive, and I felt so worn out that I wasn’t thinking about my music. It wasn’t until I was getting towards the end of my treatment that I started writing again.
“Teenage Cancer Trust staff encouraged that and I wrote the song Lidocaine while in my hospital bed.
“The song is about my cancer journey, feeling trapped and not being able to do the things I wanted to.
“I performed the song at our first gig when I was in remission, and it was really cathartic and healing.
“I wished I could have gone back to the version of me after I’d been diagnosed and reassure her that it would be ok because there was a time when I thought “oh god, would I ever be able to do this again?”
Grace finished her treatment in March 2023, and VENUS GRRRLS are going from strength to strength.
They have just returned from performing at SXSW in Texas and have released their latest single called Eighteen Crows. Last year, the band played festivals including Reading and Leeds, Isle of Wight, Kendall Calling and Y Not.
VENUS GRRRLS will also be supporting James Arthur during the Teenage Cancer Trust gigs, which were founded in 2000 by The Who’s Roger Daltrey.
In the emotional film being shown at the Royal Albert Hall, Grace pays tribute to Teenage Cancer Trust and all the staff at the charity’s unit.
They are appealing for people to support Teenage Cancer Trust so that no young person has to face cancer alone.