Sarah Mcdonald’s daughter Summer was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2012. She writes on what life looked like for Summer’s sister, Kya, during treatment.
My daughter Summer was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) as a five-year-old in November 2012. I was a single parent who also had another daughter, Kya, who was two at the time.
After a childhood cancer diagnosis, you soon realise that nothing is ever ‘normal’ again, not as you knew it before. When Summer was diagnosed, everything changed in an instant, not just for her, but for Kya, too. The calm, fun, normal life Kya knew was now anything but. Suddenly, out of nowhere, her sister - her best friend - was suffering from this horrible illness. She could no longer go near Summer due to the fear of hurting her ‘wigglies’ (central lines coming from her chest) and had to sit and watch her being pumped full of chemo or hear her screaming as doctors poked her with needles and watched as her hair fell on to her dinner plate.
What’s more, Kya was staying with my parents during all the hospital admissions and illness and could only visit Mummy and her sister at the hospital. Despite this upheaval and the trauma of seeing her sister in pain, Kya was always so good and took everything in her stride. She accepted that people came to visit Summer and bought her gifts, and that our life was now hospital visits, play workers, and seeing or listening to her sister being sick or in pain.
Kya didn’t complain once, which we took at the time to mean that she was fine and coping really well with it all. It was only later, as she neared her fifth birthday, that it began to dawn on me how much things had affected her. The morning of her birthday came, and I was so excited for her to wake up. But when she did, she was withdrawn and silent. She opened her presents very quietly and spent the day playing with Summer. Later, we lit the candles on her cake and that’s when the tears started to flow.
She was so scared. She truly didn’t want to blow out her candles due to the thought of turning five. She thought that she’d also get cancer, because of how many children she knew from our oncology family that had been diagnosed as a five-year-old. She was so convinced that it was her turn now she’d reached this age and it took me weeks and weeks to persuade her that this isn’t what happens. From then on, I tried to protect her, vowing never to take her along to things like hospital visits. I didn’t want her to have to see the horrendous things her sister had to face again.
Childhood cancer is so cruel and really does affect the whole family, siblings included. Thankfully, almost nine years later, Summer, now 14, and Kya, 11, are both doing well. Kya does sometimes struggle, and worries about people being ill, but is coping. She moves up to secondary school this year, while Summer is a typical teenager and spends most of the time in her room! She likes to express herself through drawing, and is very good at art, taking this as a GCSE.
They’ve been joined by five-year-old Madison and, being totally different ages and personalities, they do bicker and argue. But they love each other and are still always there to support each other. Still best friends.
