Chloe
One drop of blood was all it took to change the life of little Chloe.
She and her twin sister Zara were just two years old when their parents noticed a drop of blood in Chloe’s nappy. They took her to the GP on the Monday, and by Friday she had been diagnosed with a stage five Wilms Tumour and was starting chemotherapy.
“They told us it was cancer and it was stage five Wilms Tumour living in her left kidney, and it started to grow in her right, in her lung and all of her lymph nodes and was spreading fast,’’ Mum Sally said.
“We didn’t know anything about cancer at all."
Learn more about Wilms Tumour here.
“The quote to us was, ‘it’s bad but it’s treatable’. If they’d left it any longer it would have been riddled through her little body.’’
The family was told the treatment could go on for the next two years, so when they found out after nine months that Chloe was in remission – they couldn’t believe the news. The twins rang the remission bell at the hospital together.
“It was pretty emotional,’’ Sally said. “Tim and I held hands and the girls rang it as hard as they could. We were told by the social workers that, at this age, there is a chance they may not remember all of it. They’ll probably remember the fun of the games at the hospital and the play.’’
The family is firmly behind the Jeans for Genes campaign and want to educate others about the importance of research.
Research is important because it’s kept Chloe alive, they were able to do a lot of research on Wilms Tumour and basically, they knew the exact protocol to be able to give to her, all of that was from research.
"Research is the reason why we have our little one here today."