Hi my name is Emilee and I am 15. My brother was diagnosed with a germ cell tumour in October of 2015.

When I was 11, on the 16th of October 2015 I went with my dad to take my 14 year old brother who had been suffering headaches for a CT scan.

After leaving the radiology place we went to pick my mum up from work because it was her birthday. The first thing I had to tell her was that I found out that day that one of my really good friends was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (A.L.L).

I was really shocked and scared

because I didn’t know anything about leukaemia except that it was bad. Just before we left the office the phone rang and it was the radiology people to tell mum that she had to take my brother to the doctor first thing in the morning because they found something on the scan. We weren’t really worried because we didn’t think it would be anything, boy were we wrong.

Just over 30 Hrs later my family was gone, I was staying with family friends and we didn’t know if my brother could be fixed or when I would be seeing them again.

My brother underwent brain surgery

as soon as they arrived at the hospital. He had a 5.5cm Intracranial Pineal Non-Germinomatous Germ Cell Tumour. Mum and Dad kept in touch but I didn’t feel like I knew what was going on. This was made worse by the fact that everyone was talking about him and us and asking me questions I didn’t have answers for.

A bit over a week after his first operation he had to have two shunts put into his head because the tumour caused a blockage in his brain. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us.

I didn’t see my family for 3 weeks during which time I moved between my Aunts house and our family friends. When I saw Damian for the first time after his two brain surgeries he looked scary. He had no hair, tubes coming out of his head and he just looked really different. Mum and Dad looked very tired and mum cried when

she saw me. I hadn’t ever seen my dad cry until that day.