Jane's story

Meg with a well earned Lions Children of Courage Award

Busy mother of two, Jane could never have imagined the impact a cancer diagnosis would have on her family or that she’d come to understand the importance of Redkite’s support services.

When her 10 year old daughter, Meg, was diagnosed with a rare ovarian germ cell cancer in 2008, Jane says: “The wind went out of me. It’s the most horrific thing to hear about your child. My reaction was ‘this isn’t real. This is not real.’ It was a living nightmare.”

Meg was quickly admitted to hospital and had a 5 kg ovarian tumour removed. Despite her good prognosis, she and her family received the devastating news just two months later that her cancer had returned. Meg endured five months of chemotherapy, only to find out that she had relapsed for a second time. She then had half her liver removed and went through another round of aggressive chemotherapy.

"When Meg relapsed the second time, we were told to take her home and enjoy Christmas,” says Jane. “They were basically telling us they thought she wouldn’t make it. While the four of us were putting up the Christmas tree that year, my husband and I had to keep going out to the shed to cry."

Neither Jane nor her husband had family in Australia and Meg’s cancer was particularly rare, making it difficult for Jane to find anyone who really understood what she was going through. To help her during the difficult cancer journey, Jane joined a Redkite Telegroup where she could connect with other parents dealing with their child’s cancer.

Redkite Telegroups are facilitated by social workers and are available to families anywhere in Australia, no matter how remote their location. Talking to other parents helped ease Jane’s feelings of isolation. “We all ‘got’ what each of us was going through. People don’t realise it’s not over when your child leaves hospital. It’s good
to be able to share that.”

Like many parents who need to be at their child’s bedside, Jane had to stop working when Meg relapsed. “We had a mortgage and extra bills that came with Meg’s treatment: petrol, parking and food at hospital.” Despite Jane and her husband being very reluctant to accept help, Redkite was able to provide financial support to cover some household bills.

“Honestly I don’t know what we would’ve done without that. It took the pressure off when we had all this stress. It made a big difference.”

It is now over two years since Meg’s initial diagnosis and Meg recently celebrated 12 months in remission.

“Our attitude has always been very positive and I truly believe that has helped Meg achieve what she has,” says Jane. “I hope other parents with a child undergoing treatment for ovarian germ cell cancer can take comfort seeing that against the odds, Meg is doing well.”