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Anikka Burton
Anikka Burton: 'Flowers are the easy go-to option for any get well gift. Now all the joy has been taken out of them because it’s a reminder of being really sick.'
Anikka Burton: 'Flowers are the easy go-to option for any get well gift. Now all the joy has been taken out of them because it’s a reminder of being really sick.'

Don't say it with flowers – website offers alternative gifts for cancer patients

This article is more than 10 years old
Founder inspired by her own experience to set up business aimed at cancer patients' friends and families

When Anikka Burton returned home from hospital after treatment for breast cancer, she was greeted by six bunches of dead flowers on the doorstep.

Although grateful to the friends that had sent them, they were the last thing she wanted to see when she had a life-threatening disease.

"I don't know whether it was my melancholy frame of mind, but it was a reminder of how fragile life is," she remembers.

And, within a week of being diagnosed with cancer, she was inundated with enough flowers to make her front room look like a funeral parlour.

"You go through all this horrible treatment for over a year but there's no longevity to flowers. While it's nice to have two, three or four bunches, you don't need 20 all at the same time.

"Flowers are the easy go-to option for any get well gift. Now all the joy has been taken out of them because it's a reminder of being really sick," adds Burton.

Not Another Bunch of Flowers
Gifts from the Not Another Bunch of Flowers site. Photograph: Not Another Bunch of Flowers

It was this sentiment that inspired her to set up her own gift business specifically for cancer patients and their friends and families.

Not Another Bunch of Flowers is a website that offers a stylish range of gifts suitable for those facing surgery or undergoing treatment.

Burton says, "I did get a few other gifts like cupcakes and chocolates but I was advised to give up dairy, so I couldn't eat them."

She also received toiletries, some of which contained ingredients she had been told to avoid. A lot of gifts went to waste as she wasn't able to use them as her friends and family had intended.

Burton was first diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago at the age of 33. It was something she had always feared because the disease ran in the family; she lost her mother to the disease when she was young.

She remembers of the treatment: "It was really tough. It wasn't quite what I imagined. I thought chemotherapy was all about throwing up. I did feel very sick, like having a bad hangover."

It was during this time that she started thinking about gift hampers because so many of her friends said they didn't know what else to get her. She admits, "I certainly wouldn't have known before I'd gone through it."

She started to develop her business idea and began to research suitable gifts for cancer patients and other people recovering from surgery.

Not Another Bunch of Flowers
A percentage of the profits go to cancer charities. Photograph: Not Another Bunch of Flowers

Then, in January last year, after her treatment had finished, Burton began going to trade shows, talking to suppliers and buying stock.

Now, she runs the business from her home in Lindfield, West Sussex and a percentage of the profits go to cancer charities.

She has handpicked a range of items including cotton pyjamas without manmade fibres that could make patients hot and sweaty, toiletries with natural ingredients to avoid any discomfort or irritation, and hats and scarves.

"They're all gifts that you'd like to get regardless. I didn't want to include any clinical things because you're still the same person when you're poorly."

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. "I've had a fantastic reaction from patients themselves. One girl whose mother had died of cancer wrote and said she wished the site had been around when she was going through treatment."

Burton herself, meanwhile, still feels the effects of her ordeal with cancer. She faces years of taking the drug Tamoxifen, which has led to joint pains and deteriorated eyesight. But that is nothing compared to the fear she lives with.

"The biggest change is the fear. Living with it and not being able to take anything for granted; the immortality that you have is gone. Now, I take every day as it comes."

More on this story

More on this story

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  • Mind over cancer: can meditation aid recovery?

  • Young cancer survivors need support into education and employment

  • How do you know when it's time to refuse treatment for incurable cancer?

  • I haven't just survived cancer three times – I have thrived

  • Young people with cancer: how does the disease affect dating and careers?

  • James Whale: 'Cancer hasn't changed me, I'm still miserable and difficult'

  • Cancer patients should not feel pressure to bounce back to normal immediately

  • Breast Cancer Awareness Month: a survivor's journey - in pictures

  • 'People forget how hard cancer can be for relatives and carers'

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