KIDS' GUIDE TO CANCER

Pamela (00:02:02 – 00:30:11): It’s very difficult for a three, four year old to understand this. We’re essentially putting her through pain for her own good. And it’s near impossible to explain that to her. And very upsetting for us to watch We noticed there was a lump slowly growing on her head and there didn’t seem to be anything else wrong with her. Now, that we see the signs and symptoms, we realize that there were little things along the way.

Pamela (00:30:14 – 00:38:17): We went to the doctor and said we want to take her to the hospital. And that’s that’s what we did. Within a couple of hours, we we found out and everything changed.

Pamela (00:46:13 – 01:00:05): With this type of leukemia. She will have to go to the hospital every week to have a blood test taken. At the moment, she’s going through a really intensive phase where she’s having chemo several times a day.

Gareth (01:00:05 – 01:08:10): For me, just seeing her go through it, I think as a parent, to see like it be just you wish you could be in those shoes instead.

Gareth (01:08:15 – 01:25:19): That’s just heartbreaking. I try to keep Isla mentally strong. Her body isn’t quite doing what it wants to do that. But mentally, she still has control over that. So I get her to say her name so it’s “I’m Isla Crotty, And I am strong” to let her know to back herself. That’s all she can do is just to keep going.

Gareth (01:26:15 – 01:43:21): With Isla, She’s going through all of these things and we can talk to her about it to a certain degree. But with Connor, he actually doesn’t witness a lot of what she goes through. Like the hospital days. He’ll be at school, and he’s a really just compassionate boy, very caring and loving.

Pamela (01:43:21 – 01:45:19): He just remembers the little sister he’s grown up with.

Pamela (01:45:19 – 02:24:17): He doesn’t understand why she can’t run around or why she’s sick or why she gets so much more attention from us. Education that we try and give Isla is more about what’s happening to her body from a physiological point of view. But for Connor, if he could understand more about what’s happening to her in hospital and why she comes home feeling certain ways it would absolutely help with his empathy and understanding of why she is the way she is There was a real void out of all the resources that we had.

Pamela (02:24:17 – 02:41:23): One book worked. They want to go to apps before they want to go to a book, and using apps is second nature. To them. And I think they learn better with the interactive nature of apps as well. We love the app. We found it actually. It suited everybody in the whole family who filled in the gaps for what we’re looking for.

Pamela (02:42:01 – 03:00:03): We loved how the kids could choose their own avatar, take themselves through the journey. Both my kids can’t read yet. So actually having the voice button where they could have it played to them and have the story told was a lot better than just putting a picture book in front of them where they had to use their imagination.

Pamela (03:00:03 – 03:20:02): And so the kids can actually see themselves in those little animated videos, which is, yeah, cute. So it was good for Isla to relate to and also good for Connor to understand what what Isla was going through. If this could actually go out to families for anyone to to look at, it’d be amazing because everyone’s got somebody who’s going through something like this.

Pamela (03:20:09 – 03:23:10):  So it just , It’s really important just to get it out there.