Unthinkable pain: Little Lachie’s fight against cancer turns happy days into hospital stays

A quick-thinking doctor and teachers at a daycare centre have played a role in getting lifesaving medical treatment for a two-year boy, diagnosed last week with a deadly liver cancer.

Mount Cotton’s Vanessa Hyland with husband Shannon and their two sons, Lachlan, 3, and Jack, 7. Pictures: Contributed

Redland Hospital administration officer Vanessa Hyland knows only too well that life can change in the blink of any eye.

The 35-year-old mother of two took her two-year-old son, Lachlan, to the doctor last week after he came down with a temperature and was “a bit off colour”.

Little did she know, the hour-long consultation would turn her entire world upside down after doctors found a lump in little Lachlan’s abdomen and ordered urgent blood tests.

After a multitude of scans, doctors broke the devastating news to the family with the words that no parent wants to hear, “your child has cancer”.

Two-year-old Lachlan Hyland will undergo intensive chemotherapy to save his life. Pictures: Contributed

The family was told their happy-go-lucky little boy had a rare form of liver cancer, called Hepatoblastoma, and needed immediate chemotherapy.

Less than a week later, Lachlan was admitted to the Queensland Children’s Hospital where he was due to undergo an operation for a central venous catheter line on Thursday.

His dad Shannon, a shift manager for Visy Board, has put his job on hold while his son undergoes six months of gruelling hospital treatment.

Mrs Hyland has also put on hold her job at the new Redland Satellite Hospital while the family travels daily to and from South Brisbane to home at Mount Cotton.

“It was a true shock to the system and we had to immediately go and get scans done before we were given the devastating news that it was cancer,” Mr Hyland said.

“I nearly crashed the car when Vanessa rang to tell me that Lachie had a mass on his liver and he had to be admitted to hospital.

“We found out when the child care centre he is at in Redland Bay called to say he had a temperature.

“It was also a very clever GP at Victoria Point who sent us off for scans after he felt Lachie’s liver was swollen.”

Despite the prospect of six months of intensive chemotherapy in hospital, little Lachie has remained “a box of birds” and happily looking forward to his third birthday on November 10.

“It has all happened so quickly, which is probably a blessing as we haven’t had time to dwell on it,” Mr Hyland said.

“The GoFundMe donations are overwhelming and really a lifesaver for us as neither of us have a lot of holidays owing.

“My parents are no longer alive and Vanessa’s parents live in Townsville so it is really all up to us to get Jack, our seven-year-old son to school every day.

“We know it’s going to be a few months because he will not be able to attend daycare after the chemo because his immunity will be very low.

“Next week it will be our sixth wedding anniversary and I expect we will be marking that in the hospital.”

Little Lachlan Hyland will undergo intensive chemotherapy after being diagnosed with liver cancer. Pictures: Contributed

Family friend Brittney O’Toole, who works with Mrs Hyland, set up a GoFundMe page to help the family pay bills and their mortgage while both parents were not working.

It quickly amassed interest from the local community at Redland Bay and Mount Cotton and the $20,000 target was surpassed within days, with one donation of more than $5000.

“It was truly a weight off their shoulders when I was able to tell them not to worry as some money was being organised,” Ms O’Toole said.

“It’s difficult to see such a beautiful family struggling and the heartache because Lachie is so little.

“Nobody ever imagined this would happen.”

Ms O’Toole said she was prompted to set up the fund because her friend was “loving and caring” and had helped many other families suffering through her job at the hospitals.