My 12yo was diagnosed with bone cancer, but she never stopped making us laugh

“Some children rebel against their parents after a cancer diagnosis, whereas Lara used her humour to deal with the pain,” Mum Sandra tells Kidspot.

Alexandra Feiam

4 min read

August 8, 2023 - 1:38PM

Family Life

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Lara always knew how to light up a room.

From the moment she was little, she knew ways to make people smile, thanks to her quirky and naturally entertaining personality.

“She loves a good prank and is always up for a laugh,” her mum Sandra said. “She also uses her humour to cope with what’s going on around her.”

So when Lara was 12 and discovered a painful lump on her leg, she instantly saw the brighter side.

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Lara nicknamed her tumour "Fred the Alien". Source: Supplied

“The doctor told me it was a tumour”

Mum Sandra and Dad Antonio took Lara to the doctor for a scan. By the end of the day, Sandra had four missed calls from the doctor. “It looks like a tumour, but I don’t know much more,” they told her.

“I was petrified, I guess any parent would be,” Sandra told Kidspot.

Driving three hours to the hospital the following week, their worst nightmare came true: Lara was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer.

Luckily, they caught it early. But there was a long road ahead.

Despite being devastated by the news, 11-year-old Lara decided to put a positive spin on it.

“Out of nowhere, she just said, ‘Oh, I’ve got Fred the Alien’, and I said, ‘Alright, who is Fred the Alien?’, and then she goes, ‘My tumour’,” Sandra said.

Using her affectionate moniker for the tumour and finding humour in everything she could, she used her joyful attitude to cope with the treatments and persistent pain.

“She’d make jokes out of things,” Sandra explained. “For example, when a nurse had a bit of an accent, you know ... they used to make jokes together and things like that.”

“She’s a bit of a joker, and that’s what kept us going.”

The Starlight Express Room was "amazing" for Lara and her family. Source: Supplied

“We knew she was getting better when her humour started coming back”

Then the pandemic hit.

Lara and her family originally lived in Canberra but had to travel to Sydney for her cancer treatment. Being far from family eventually took its toll on Lara.

She spent ten months at hospital, missing Christmas, New Year's and Easter away from family.

“We were away for quite some time, and that plays a big part,” Sandra told Kidspot. “Not only on her but on us parents too, me not being able to see them – because she was with my husband at the hospital at the time when the closures started.”

And as her chemo continued, the side effects were traumatising. She experienced nausea, vomiting, skyrocketing temperatures and high blood pressure. At one point, she lost her eyesight for several hours.

“Knowing the funny kid she is, seeing her sense of helplessness and anxiety was very overwhelming for us,” Sandra said. “Each time she had a terrible reaction to her chemotherapy, we knew she was starting to feel better when her sense of humour was coming back.”

Lara is now in remission. Source: Supplied

“The Starlight Express Room is like a world away”

Thanks to chemotherapy, soon Fred the Alien was small enough to remove and was replaced with a titanium rod in her leg.

But the battle wasn’t over. Now she had to re-learn how to walk.

And when Lara was well enough at the hospital, the Starlight Express Room became a guiding light.

“Once you walk into that room, it’s like a world away; you can focus your thoughts on something a bit more normal,” Sandra said.

The Starlight Express Room has everything a kid needs to escape the reality of treatment. “It’s not just the room - you socialise, they gain skills, it’s wellbeing, it’s amazing,” she said.

“There’s no other word for it, well there are other words, but what comes to mind right now is it’s just amazing.”

Lara is now 15 years old and in remission.

To celebrate, she was given the chance to visit Hamilton Island for her Starlight Wish. “No doubt, it was wonderful,” said Sandra.

“We went to the beach a lot … and we explored the Island with the buggy, everywhere really. That in itself was wonderful because we got to spend time together; we got to have the time to talk.”

Looking back, Lara and her family are “grateful” for everything they went through, even though “what Lara went through was hard.”

“I guess you never know until you go through it, what it really truly means to us,” she said.

Lara’s Wish to visit Hamilton Island with her family coincided with Starlight's 13,000th Wish to be granted.

To celebrate the Wishgranting program and the wish milestone, Lara, along with nine other families, recently visited "Happiness Island" with Virgin Australia and Hamilton Island.

To find out more, visit starlight.org.au