For Jakes' Sake

My beautiful friend Leila has a lovely family of 5. Jake, 6 loves his BMX riding and was about to start his first year of footy.  In April, Jake complained of a sore tummy and he wasn't quite playing as he normally would. Initially Leila made a doctors appointment, but mothers intuition kicked in and she decided to take him to the hospital.  In the emergency department at Noarlunga Hospital Jake played and laughed with his mum.  The doctors decided to do a quick standard X-ray to check if he had a chest infection - what they found was unfortunately much worse. Jake was immidiately admitted to the Womans and Childrens hospital and spent the next week having many tests to find out exactly what was wrong.  Unfortunatly they have discovered he has stage 4 Neuroblastoma (Cancer) that is in his stomach, his lymph nodes, his chest cavity and his bone marrow.  This particular diagnosis comes with a survival rate of just 30 - 40%, devestating news that no parent ever wants to hear.  This families life has totally fallen apart in such a short amount of time. He quickly started Intensive chemotherapy which he will need for the next year before they can operate. The family is being positive and hopeful that Jakes body can fight this cancer so he can live a normal life. Leila has had to give up her childcare job to stay at home to care for Jake and be by his side at the hospital, he has a long battle ahead.  This is going to be an expensive journey for this battling family. Whilst both parents worked, they don't have a lot, money is tight and they need all the help we can give them during this difficult time. We can't take away the cancer or any of the emotional pain for this family, but we can hopefully ease some of the financial burden and remove the added stress.  We aim to raise as much money as possible to make this journey the teeniest bit easier for them.