'I feel like I've failed my children. I don't want them to go through what I've been through'.
These are the devastating words of NHS care worker Fatima Parkinson who has been diagnosed with an aggressive and incurable bone cancer.
The 37-year-old has lived in Stockwood for five years after she was granted a visa from Zambia.
Since moving to Bristol she has attempted to save money in the hope of bringing her three children over. They are currently living with one of Fatima's cousins after her husband left when she was pregnant with her youngest child.
At the end of 2018, she was told the earth-shattering news she had terminal cancer and now her only wish is to fly her kids to Bristol before her death.
She does not want to tell her three children, Miracle, 9, Favour, 13, Darren, 17, during their daily telephones conversations so her they are still unaware of her grim diagnosis.
"Every day I feel like I've failed them," she said, "My mum died from the same thing. To think my children could have to go through what I'm going through is horrible."
Two months after moving to England, Fatima was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She carried on working despite undergoing crippling chemotherapy which left her aching all over, nauseous and extremely fatigued.
"I had to pick myself up and work so I could send money home to children," she said. "I couldn't eat, I was sore all over."
Following an eight-month battle, she was given the all-clear and hoped that would be the end of her misery.
She started applications in 2017 for her kids to gain visas to travel to England. For this she took on a bank loan of more than £5,000. But her case was rejected because some of the paperwork was handwritten rather than typed on a computer. She still had to pay all the costs.
Devastated she had to keep working to pay her loan off and provide money to her children.
In 2018, she tarted experiencing an unusual pain in her hip. For six months she visited her GP about the symptom and was only prescribed paracetamols until it became so severe she needed crutches to walk.
She was finally sent for tests, which is when doctors found the stage 4 cancer.
"I sat in hospital and they told me I had cancer in my bones," she said. "I asked if it was curable and the doctor said he was very sorry but it was not.
"That was like a bomb going off. My whole world shut down."
Since then, Fatima has arranged all the paperwork so she believes her next application for a visa will be successful.
She now needs to raise £7,500 to cover all the costs and has launched a Gofundme
"I hope by some miracle I can fight this," she said. "I have to keep fighting for my kids.
"I dream every day that they will be able to come over here."
Doctors have not said how long she could have left. She is also under the care of St Peter's Hospice.
"They have been wonderful," she said. "I have a nurse who comes to my house and makes sure I'm OK."
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