When Rachel and Josh’s son Nate was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, at the age of four, their family and community came together and supported them in their time of need.

Nate’s treatment started three days after diagnosis. The two younger boys were taken out of Kindy so they wouldn’t bring germs home to Nate, and for the first six months, Josh stopped working. Rachel had a small business at home and had to stop that too.

The ongoing family and community support Rachel and Josh received, meant they could focus their attention on Nate and his treatment.

“My mum helped a lot with our two younger boys. Josh would often take the two youngest boys up to his mum’s place in Toowoomba, and they would have so much fun, so that was very helpful.

The practical and emotional support the family received from their neighbours and extended community meant they could focus on Nate’s treatment.

“We have amazing neighbours. We live in a really nice little cul-de-sac, and we know all our immediate neighbours, so that’s really lovely.

The family had been living in the area for so long, they had a good community base of friends of the local area.

“My husband, Josh, is big into sports, so he’s got connections from that. We’re Christians, so we’ve got lots of really good connections from our local church group. The community here at Springfield has been amazing.”

“When we got Nate’s diagnosis, we called our family first, then, friends. I’m fortunate that one of my really, really close girlfriend is an emergency doctor, so she was just the most amazing comfort because I called her up and straight away and told me Nate’s cancer was treatable, but it was going to be a very long and hard treatment path. I knew that deep down, but at that stage, the hospital wasn’t telling me that, but for me that was good to have that knowledge. It helped me cope, to know those things. I could call her up at any time, so that was extremely helpful.”

 I just told my close friends. I posted something on Facebook after maybe a week or so, but other than that, I just very purposefully shut down for 10 months and I didn’t speak to anybody unless I knew that they knew that Nate had cancer.”

“One of our friends gave Nate a Nintendo Switch, another helped us with doing some stuff to our house to make it better for a chemo patient. We had some blinds that were a bit mouldy, and when you got a one-year-old, a two-year-old and a four-year-old, I hadn’t replaced them because they would get ruined anyway with young kids, but then, when one of them is a chemo patient, it becomes a priority, so they replaced the blinds in our house. Little things like that, which is actually a massive thing. It was really thoughtful, beautiful things like that really made a big difference.”

Nate finished treatment February 2023.

At Redkite, we are here to help a family’s wider community so they can better support a family they love. Our professional social workers are available to discuss anything and everything, offering flexible, confidential, and free support to anyone connected to a child with cancer, including grandparents, relatives, friends, or networks. Connect with us for support for as long as you need.