As Charmaine Green and her three children looked forward to 2010, their thoughts for the year ahead were devastated when two year old Nevaeh, whose name is ‘heaven’ spelt backwards, was diagnosed with Leukaemia on 31 December 2009. Charmaine spent the next month travelling in taxis to and from hospital and worrying that she wasn’t spending enough time with her other two children, Kyra and Trenae.
The family met Family Support Worker Lyn, from the Surrey Care Team, at the end of January and Lyn’s support immediately made a difference.
“Lyn is great to have with us at hospital appointments – she is my second pair of ears when we talk to consultants, reminds me what questions I wanted to ask and so helpful driving us to and from the hospital. She is great support when I’m feeling emotional or when I need to whinge at someone about something! All three of my children love her!”
“Leading up to New Year’s Eve 2010, I was quite emotional and spoke to Lyn a lot. I kept thinking that this time last year everything had been normal. But I made a decision not to dwell on the past and to celebrate that I still have Nevaeh – we have reached one year through this illness so we made a cake to celebrate! We spelt out ‘kicking butt’ in smarties because that is exactly what Nevaeh is doing with her illness! Being down about our situation is not going to happen in 2011; 2010 was such a tough year that we are going to celebrate as much as we can in 2011!”
“Our new ‘kicking butt’ year hasn’t started so well with Nevaeh spending time in hospital after picking up a bug but I’m not letting it get me down. Nevaeh will always pick up bugs because her immune system is down so it’s just part and parcel of her illness. I know Lyn will be there for us when we need her and I think what Rainbow does for families is just fantastic. Lyn has been such an incredible support this year that she feels like part of the family now!
We are still on route to finish her treatment by March 2012 so that will be another fantastic milestone to reach! There will be plenty of milestones to reach…..Nevaeh will be nine before she is completely cancer free.”
