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Our daughter Sophie was diagnosed with Bi-Lateral Wilms Tumour (Cancer in both her kidneys) in when she was 16 months old. She underwent 12 months of chemotherapy and 6 sessions of radiotherapy. She had to have both her kidneys removed and started dialysis 3 days a week in Temple Street Children’s Hospital. We traveled from Sligo to Dublin 3 days a week for dialysis. Normal life ceased to exist for us, our entire life revolved around the trips to Dublin for dialysis and in that first year for chemotherapy. We had to put our life on hold and yet try to keep life normal for our oldest child Darragh who was 4 at the time. There was always the constant worry about Sophie and how her treatment & dialysis was going, the endless traveling to Dublin, worrying how Darragh was coping with it all particularly because we had to be away from home so often. We could never plan ahead of anything because you never knew when Sophie would get sick or spike a temperature and we would have to go to Temple Street with her, while Darragh was minded by family members. Thomas took leave from his job for 2 years to travel to Dublin with Sophie.

My name is Poppy, I am 9 years old and I’m from Sligo. I like to play with my friends, draw, watch TV and I love animals. My life was good and lots of fun until I was diagnosed with leukemia 9 months ago. This is a type of blood cancer that is not easy to live with. The treatment is for two and a half years and is very harsh. One medicine made my hair all fall out and I was sad and I cried, I now have short hair and I love it, although everyone thinks I’m a boy. The medicine also made me so weak that I ended up in a wheelchair because I couldn’t walk and I was so bad at one stage that my mum had to turn me over in bed because I didn’t have the strength to even move.  I also have had to go to theatre over 10 times so far and have had over 10 transfusions as my blood cells can get quite low with the chemo. Me & my mum have to travel to Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin a lot, it’s a nice hospital, we used to have to drive up every week from Sligo for my treatment, but now it’s just every month.