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 What would you do if suddenly the income coming into your household just stopped? And at the same time the cost of your power, your petrol, your phone, your food, went up? All because your child had been diagnosed with cancer.
For Silvana and her husband Mario it happened when their little boy Ricky was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.
“We first started worrying about Ricky when he was six months old,” explains Silvana. “We noticed spots on his back, and knew something wasn’t right.
“The doctor told us that Ricky had tumours in his body that could grow at any time in any place, and that could include brain tumours.
“When Ricky was three years old we asked him to pick up something from the floor, but he couldn’t see it. That’s when we knew things had gotten worse. The doctors told us there was an abnormal growth on the brain, a tumour pressing on Ricky’s optic nerves… and that it was inoperable.
“That’s when it hit us. That’s when our life changed.”
As soon as the doctors found the brain tumour, Ricky was started on chemotherapy. The medical team put a ‘port’ under Ricky’s rib-cage, near where the heart could pump the medication where Ricky needed it.
“My husband Mario is a huge big guy – 6 foot four, a truck-driver … but he’d break down and cry every time he saw Ricky go through chemo,” says Silvana.
With Silvana at home with four other children to look after and with Mario needing to take time off work during Ricky’s cancer treatment, the family started to feel the financial impact of Ricky’s cancer diagnosis.
“We used up the little savings we had, and maxed out all our credit cards,” recalls Silvana.
“Then the car broke down, the rates bill came, our car rego came up and my daughter needed new schoolbooks… life doesn’t stop for the other kids just because of what is happening to Ricky.”
Redkite helped the family with paying essential household bills and car registration to reduce the financial stress on the family.
“It’s amazing, that little things help so much,” says Silvana. “At the start you don’t want to ask for help, you’re too proud, but I’m so grateful Redkite helped us. It helped take away the worry when there’s so much else to think about.”
Ricky’s brain tumour has left him visually-impaired. He’s not completely blind, but he has to rely heavily on touch, smell and hearing.
“Ricky’s better but he’s not 100%,” says Silvana. ”There’s not a day I don’t think about the disease.
“That’s why the Redkite telegroup has been so good. Each week you hook up on the phone with other people around Australia whose kids have been going through the same thing. You just talk about things, and you know they understand.
“Ricky’s last scan showed the tumour is growing again. We don’t know what will happen. When you read what brain tumours can cause, it’s frightening. We have to take each day as it comes.
“But this is our life. We have to live for now”. |
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