Tasmanian mum Emily Isham’s heart-wrenching account of son Ned Isham’s cancer battle
A TASMANIAN mother has written a heart-wrenching account of her son Ned Isham’s battle with cancer.
Tasmania
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EMILY Isham is a Kingston GP who moved to Melbourne in June last year with her family — husband Seth and three children Lucy, Ned and Eleanor. Another son Gilbert was born in Melbourne.
They relocated so five-year-old Ned could receive a bone-marrow transplant at the Royal Children’s Hospital from his little sister Eleanor, to treat acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Emily writes a blog www.edwardisham.com where she has documented Ned’s battle, which began when he was just two.
Here is a moving extract from a recent blog post.
MORE: LITTLE NED PRAYS FOR HAPPY ENDING
“It’s the familiarity with which she purposefully strides, mundanely pushing the packed pram through the hospital.
It’s the first-name greetings they both dispense habitually to passing hospital staff in the corridors and baristas in on-site cafes.
It’s the small girl leading the way through the building’s twists and turns with a boldness that exceeds her years.
It’s the limp with which the slightly taller boy hobbles in a futile attempt to keep up with his little sister, to his despair.
It’s the efficiency with which the adults seem to manage several unruly children while negotiating queues and healthcare staff carrying out their jobs.
It’s the short temper and quick irritation they occasionally display when even the little things go wrong.
It’s a cruel irony that the child who you’ve spent the most one-on-one time with, caring for during their most vulnerable moments; the one in whom you’ve seen the most deep resilience and raw emotion, is the one whose existence you have to constantly grapple with the possible loss of.
It’s the deeper skin grooves, the wisps of grey hairs, the sunken, encircled eyes, and the haggard shoulder slump that they both carry wearily.
It’s the overenthusiastic jokes and games he’s playing with his laughing kids, to cover his fragility.
It’s the unmitigated anxious over-reaction she responds with to any casual conversation, joke or perceived threat. It’s the moments of hesitation in response to usual catch-up questions, followed by answers tinged with defeat and pessimism.
It’s the casualness with which she discusses the surgery or procedure scheduled the next day.
It’s the ringing phone that remains unanswered and the delayed replies because they both struggle to respond to the dreaded questions, or converse with an unbroken voice.
It’s the hardened smiles and slightly pressured speech when talking to other parents, while awaiting the doctor’s call to convey the dreaded test result or distractedly looking at the phone in anticipation.
It’s glimpsing her, stooped over with face in hands in a hidden corner.
It’s the deadpan, emotionless tone of her voice when discussing the few remaining options and their consequences for her little boy.
It’s now been nearly four years of battling this beast, and it’s viciously unrelenting — the constant difficult decisions, battles, broken promises, while away from home — both physically and emotionally burdensome. And now we still don’t see an end. The transplant was meant to be it — the end; the cure, but that end-of-tunnel light is now only a vague glow.
Every stage has been and is still a rocky, contentious, gruelling phase filled with uncertainties and no guarantees.
We are sad for all of our children, particularly Ned, and so very shattered — waking each morning, after yet another broken, unsettled night, to get on with the essential motions of getting four children ready for the day ahead.
It’s a cruel irony that the child who you’ve spent the most one-on-one time with, caring for during their most vulnerable moments; the one in whom you’ve seen the most deep resilience and raw emotion, is the one whose existence you have to constantly grapple with the possible loss of.
We still don’t know what’s ahead, and neither do the doctors. But this we do know: though we are breaking inside at the prospect of our final tentative option possibly falling through, though the grief we may experience is too hard to even contemplate, we know that wherever Ned is or goes, he will be held in loving arms here on earth or with our Father in heaven.”
This week the Isham family received the devastating news that the bone marrow treatment had failed to arrest Ned’s leukaemia and his final hope is a world-leading, and prohibitively expensive, clinical trial at Seattle Children’s Hospital in the US.
Writing in her blog Emily said the Seattle trail had been running for several years and had been successful at putting 80 per cent of patients like Ned into remission. The cost to move to the US and complete the treatment is $680,000.
“It does unfortunately come at enormous, prohibitive cost, and for this, we must humbly ask for some support along the way because we are ever so grateful for how much our village have uplifted us and carried us to this point,” Emily writes.
“We know we are Ned’s parents, and he is our responsibility, and we will continue to do our utmost to save Ned’s life and raise all our children with love. But though we are exploring every possible avenue for us to finance the upfront cost of Ned’s treatment as much as possible, we’ve sadly found ourselves in the desolate position of falling short and needing to plead for help because we just simply cannot do this alone.”
The Isham’s have set up a gofundme page to raise funds. See www.gofundme.com/get-Ned-to-Seattle
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