Leukaemia can’t slow strong-willed Grace

With her princess dress and runners on, her beloved doll buckled into its pram, Grace Antonello hits the track for her morning walk around the Royal Children’s Hospital oncology ward.

Leukaemia patient Grace Antonello dressed up in her princess dress. Picture: David Caird

With her princess dress and runners on, her beloved doll buckled into its pram, Grace Antonello hits the track for her morning walk.

The two-year-old is tethered to an IV pole, but that doesn’t slow her down as she cuts laps of the Royal Children’s Hospital oncology ward.

It’s been a daily ritual – when she has been well enough – to stop and check in on little friends across the hall, and finish with a pit stop at the nurses station to do some drawing on their paper work.

Grace Antonello with mother Jessica Mekken. Picture: David Caird

Grace’s leukaemia diagnosis five months ago shattered life-as-they-knew-it for parents Jessica Mekken and Daniel Antonello in just one day.

They started the morning with a toddler who they were taking to the GP because of concerns about lots of unusual bruising.

They ended that day cradling Grace as she underwent a blood transfusion at the RCH; the first in what would be countless procedures to quash the cancer cells that were overrunning her little body.

But Ms Mekken said her daughter was inspiring in how she had adapted to and tolerated this new way of life, stuck largely in a hospital ward.

“Being a toddler, it just becomes their life really quickly, because everything is new for them anyway. This just carried on as the next new thing that we’re doing,” said Ms Mekken.

“She understands each of the procedures. She’ll tell the nurses when they have to clean her lines. She says ‘I’m brave, I’m brave’, when she has to do her port access.

“She just amazes me constantly with her strength. Even simple things; going for finger pricks or having her port accessed, she sits there and talks the nurses through it as they do their job.”

Long hospital stays have been extra hard because of covid restrictions banning visitors and shutting down many of the playtime experiences on the ward.

Slowly these chances for interaction and fun – which social-butterfly Grace is craving – are starting back up, thankfully at a time where she is entering the most gruelling phase of her two year cancer treatment.

“I just wish for a cure for her,” Ms Mekken said.

“I want Grace to look back at this time and know that she was so strong. This will make her a resilient person. I’m so proud of her and so grateful for what they’re doing for her.”

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