11 years ago, Milly was feeling unwell and started looking very pale.
Since she wasn’t getting better, we took her to our local hospital to have her blood tested.
We waited a few hours for the results. Finally, the doctor came and said, “There is no easy way to say this… Milly has leukaemia.”
I will never forget that moment. Milly screamed and asked if she was going to die. I remember thinking, how does an 11-year-old even know what that means? How unfair that she had to ask if she would live.
I tried to keep Milly calm while my whole world felt like it was falling apart.
That night, we weren’t given much information. We were left alone in a small room, trying to process the devastating news and wondering how to tell her sister and the rest of the family.
The next morning was a whirlwind. We were told we would go to Ward 84 at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital to find out which type of leukaemia Milly had and get a treatment plan.
An ambulance came to pick us up, and we were rushed to Manchester with blue lights flashing, wearing just the clothes on our backs, feeling more scared than ever.
The feelings we had, and Milly had, are the same that every family experiences when they hear their child has cancer. It’s hard to believe it’s happening—it feels like you’ve stepped into someone else’s life.
The ambulance crew tried to prepare us for Ward 84, where we would face childhood cancer head-on, praying it wasn’t real.
When we arrived, a nurse showed us Milly’s bed. Then the doctor explained she would stay in the hospital for at least a few weeks. The next morning, Milly would go into theatre to have a Hickman line inserted and receive chemotherapy directly into her spine.
This was just the beginning.
The next 10 months were a roller coaster. At first, Milly did not respond to the first chemo, so the second cycle was much stronger and made her very ill.
As a parent, watching this happen to your child is heartbreaking. Feeling helpless as your daughter vomits constantly, wracked with pain, needing morphine every hour, is unbearable.
Despite the hard times in hospital, we also had many happy moments.
The nurses became our family, making life on the ward brighter. We made friends with other families and shared a lot of laughter over those months.
Watching children face cancer is very humbling. I will always admire how dignified Milly was throughout her illness.
During her time in hospital, we often talked about how we could help other children and families going through the same experience.
So, for Milly, I set up Milly’s Smiles.
Our Milly Bags don’t change the diagnosis and they don’t work miracles, but in that dark, confusing moment, I believe they make a small difference.
That’s all Milly and I wanted—to make a little difference for these amazing, brave children and their families.
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