‘Next year he might just be our real angel’: Sammy Scully celebrates one final Christmas before cancer kills him
Seven-year-old Sammy Scully doesn’t know this is his last Christmas. With a brain tumour the size of a peach, his mum’s wish is to make the festive season unforgettable.
SA News
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It will be little Samuel ‘Sammy’ Scully’s last Christmas.
The whimsical white Christmas tree is up, the Elf on a Shelf is magically moving every night and the family are eagerly awaiting Santa’s arrival.
But there is one big secret, mum Alison Harrison is putting on a brave face as her seven-year-old son doesn’t know he has until the new year to live.
“Next year he might just be our real angel,” she said.
Sammy was given a year to live by doctors in January this year after he fell over at school.
“He started to seem a bit wobbly like he was drunk,” the mum-of-three exclusively told The Advertiser.
On January 9 the 50-year-old mum brought her only son to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital following a GP’s advice.
That same day at 4pm doctors told her Sammy has a brain tumour the size of a peach and it would eventually kill him.
“I think everyone on that floor heard my screams,” she said.
“There is no treatment … there is no cure, the only hope for Sammy is to buy some quality time with some radiotherapy.”
Sammy was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and it is 100 per cent fatal.
“My hope for this Christmas would be a cure for cancer but unfortunately that’s not going to happen,” Ms Harrison said.
With Sammy’s prognosis in mind Ms Harrison is committed to making this year’s Christmas one to remember.
“My hope for Sammy and my family this year is to spend (Christmas) surrounded by love and laughter and family,” she said.
“He still believes in Santa and we still have the Elf on the Shelf thing happening here.
“Sammy’s happy place is home, here with his animals. It’s not about the gifts, it’s just about being with our family.”
Since January Sammy has undergone radiotherapy, chemotherapy and a clinical trial, all in an attempt to prolong his life.
When he was diagnosed Sammy, who was six at the time, asked his mum if he was going to die and his mum told him “no”.
“I don’t think a seven-year-old can comprehend,” Ms Harrison said.
“He has such a beautiful spirit and he’s so full of life and love and laughter and to just take that away would scare him.
“(It) would be the worst thing I can do … to take any hope away.”
For the Andrews Farm mum, the only time she allows herself to cry is at night, cuddled up with her youngest child, after he has drifted off to sleep.
“People say to me, you’re so strong, it’s like no I’m not really, I’m a bit of a fake,” she said.
“I fake being strong for my children, but I break every single night.”
Ms Harrison said there is “no silver lining” in her son’s diagnosis.
“People say ‘everything happens for a reason’, what’s the reason of this?,” she said.
“You’ve got these little children that are just so innocent, they haven’t even had a chance at life.”
Ms Harrison said the past year has tested her faith.
“I’ve been questioning a lot of things I was raised to believe in,” she said.
“And then I go back to the fact that I need to keep some sort of faith because if I don’t … who or what is there for Sammy when he passes.
“I need to know that there is something better waiting for him.”
Following Sammy’s diagnosis the little boy was required to have part of his brain biopsied – a procedure that inadvertently caused him to experience a minor brain bleed.
The stroke caused half of Sammy’s body to paralyse leaving him in a wheelchair and unable to blink one of his eyes.
Ms Harrison, who has a small Kia, has tried to access some of her superannuation early to purchase a larger second-hand car to allow room for Sammy and his medical supplies along with her elder two daughters.
“I’ve worked all my life and I keep getting knocked back from the ATO,” Ms Harrison said.
“As a single mum that isn’t able to work, it’s just one kick in the guts after another and it weighs down.”
Ms Harrison worked as a disability support officer prior to her son’s diagnosis earlier this year. She now works as a full-time career for Sammy.
An ATO spokesperson said it could not comment on individual cases but compassionate early release applicants had to supply “enough evidence” to ensure they met the criteria.
“The compassionate release of super legislation provides very specific and limited circumstances in which an individual can access their superannuation early to pay for certain expenses, where those individuals have no other means of paying for the eligible expenses,” they said.
“It is really unfair because I have no where to lay blame, or anger, I have to deal with this, I don’t know how to deal with this, but I have three children that are all dealing with it in different ways,” Ms Harrison said.
Ms Harrison’s two elder daughters, 11-year-old Abigail and 10-year-old Erin who know their brother is suffering.
“They witness all the vomiting and they see all the side effects of Sammy’s treatments,” Ms Harrison said.
The kids attend therapy to process their emotions with the Cancer Association including art therapy where Ms Harrison said Sammy can “create his feelings rather than talk about his feelings” if he wants to.
Ms Harrison will donate Sammy’s tumour to medical researchers when he dies.
“As soon as he passes, I’ll get that thing out of his head because it’s not part of him,” she said.
“(They can) have it so other parents don’t have to go through this.”
If you’d like to donate to Sammy Scully, you can here.
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