Adventurers who’ve been following along for quite some time will recall the story of Alice Pyne, the English teen with terminal bone cancer who is inspiring others with her story and her Bucket List.

[For newer readers, if you’re interested you can have a look at series to date – A Teen’s Bucket List, Teen Bucket List Update, Hey Alice! Good Works are Spreading Thanks to You! and Checking In on Alice – and be all caught up.]

It’s been several months since I’ve reported on Alice, now sixteen, and I’m pleased to say that she is doing fine. Not fine as in becoming cured, but fine as in hanging in there and doing reasonably well.

It’s all relative, isn’t it? How we define ‘fine’ when asked how we are?

I popped over to Alice’s website and while she doesn’t post often, she’s been keeping us all apprised of the many developments in her life.

Here are just a few:

Alica had the opportunity to see the hit theatrical show War Horse in London, and went backstage to meet some of the cast and view the life-sized ‘horse puppets’ up close.

In January she helped cut the ribbon at the grand opening of a Children’s Charitable Trust (thrift) shop in Barrow.

Plans are underway for a group, calling themselves Team Alice, which will cycle a thousand miles in May to raise money for charity.

Since her illness and her efforts to get others to sign up for bone marrow donorship became known around the world, Alice and her family have also enjoyed some caravan holidays (aka camping to others) in Torquay courtesy of Torbay Holiday Helpers Network, a charity founded by hotelier Luke Tillen in 2009.

Families of children dying of cancer are able to get away and experience a proper vacation, free of charge, away from hospitals and medical appointments and constant reminders of illness. Luke had seen a television show about a similar charity run by parents who had lost their twenty year old daughter to cancer; the emotional impact he felt was so great, he felt compelled to create something similar in the Torquay area.

Discussions with Luke led to Alice designing her very own mug to be sold to raise funds for…wait for it…Alice’s very own charity!

That’s right.

Alice’s Escapes will follow the model of Luke’s THHN and other similar charitable organizations, in this instance seeking hospitality for ill children and their families in Alice’s own community of Cumbria. If you want to learn more, why not follow Alices’ Escapes Facebook page?

I’ll be completely honest. Whenever I check in on Alice’s website to see how she’s doing, I do so with unease and a bit of dread. I’m afraid that I’ll learn she is ill, not doing well, or worse.

This all pales in comparison, of course, to what Alice and her family and friends are dealing with on a daily basis. I know that, and it humbles me.

The most amazing thing is that despite all that is going on that they must deal with, they don’t stop giving and giving and doing what they can to help others.

Reminds us all of the power of focused minds, loving hearts, helping hands and limited time.