Rachel’s blood showed 90% leukaemia cells and the following day we were told that without treatment she would have just a few weeks left to live. Chemotherapy started immediately.
Life for our family changed forever. Nothing in the world can prepare parents for hearing their child has cancer or for what is to come.
Five days later we suffered another blow when further genetic testing found that she had a very rare form of leukaemia seen in only 5% of children with ALL. The prognosis for this type is poorer and the relapse rate considerably higher. This meant that the treatment regime was going to be much more intense with lengthy inpatient stays for high-dose chemotherapy.
Rachel has received numerous doses of 14 different types of chemotherapy, administered intravenously, by injection and orally. Due to serious, life-threatening side effects she has spent most of the last 10 months as an inpatient. These have included severe mucositis, typhlitis, kidney damage, severe vomiting and diarrhoea, numerous infections and much, much more.
She has also experienced proximal myopathy where she lost the ability to walk as well as severe emotional and behavioural side effects from steroids. This is all in addition to countless transfusions, general anaesthetics, nasogastric tube placements, scans and x-rays.
The list could go on and on but Rachel has displayed immense bravery and courage throughout despite everything she has had to face.
At times she has been unable to walk, run, play, swim or do many of the things that a healthy child is able to. She has lost a large part of a “normal” childhood but has taken everything in her stride. She never complains or questions anything and faces it all with a smile. She is such a caring little girl and at times she has comforted me when she has seen me upset.
It is a miracle her little body has been able to survive this brutal treatment. We have all been utterly shocked at the toxicity of treatment for all children suffering from cancer and at the chronic lack of funding for childhood cancer.
There are only a few types of chemotherapy drug that have been specifically developed for childhood cancer and many of those used regularly were first used over 40 years ago. During our journey, our family have also met families of children suffering with cancer for which there is no cure.
This all has to change and is why we have set up Rachel’s Rainbow Dashers. The money we raise through Rachel’s fund will go towards research into better, kinder treatments for childhood cancer and to help find cures for all types of children’s cancer. We hope that in the future children will not have to suffer as Rachel has.
