Nikki Bowdidge, CEO of The Tom Bowdidge Youth Cancer Foundation, discusses the importance of awareness for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. During this month charities across the world raise awareness of childhood cancers and the impact they have on children, teenagers and their families. It is a time when we at The Tom Bowdidge Youth Cancer Foundation raise support, awareness of childhood cancers and problems they encounter.
A cancer diagnosis in any family is devastating to everyone. It stops life in its tracks as families and young people face a very different way of life. Just when children and teenagers should be enjoying school or college, playing with their friends and socialising with their peers, cancer changes all that. Suddenly their focus is medications, chemotherapy, operations, hospital life and whether their life will be shortened. This is something no-one would wish on any family or young person.
I am a parent who has had to watch their son at the age of 18, fight with all he had to extinguish this cruel disease from his body. Everyday we would discuss new symptoms, whether they came from the cancer itself or because of the chemotherapy. To see your child suffer when there is nothing you can do is the worst feeling in the world. I wish I could have swapped places and taken the pain away from him, but it was not to be. As a parent you worry 24/7, every consultant meeting brought bad news. Every glimmer of hope was brushed away by some bad news. I have never felt so helpless.
Tom had many questions and didn’t want us to hide anything from him. It meant some of the questions were hard to answer. But we always kept our promise. He was told what was happening to him and what to expect. Sadly, we lost Tom after 13 months of treatment. Unfortunately, as determined as Tom was, so was his cancer. This tends to be the problem with teenage cancer – it is rare and very aggressive.
Cancer in younger children is slightly different and there are many cases where children have made a full recovery. This is because children can be more resilient to cancer and its treatments than teenagers and adults. It is possible to completely recover and go on to lead a normal life.
It is so important that everyone looks out for unusual signs, bumps and lumps and report it straight to a GP. Early diagnosis is key to a successful recovery. This is why awareness months are so important as they serve as a reminder of the types of cancer children and young people can have.
