Cody's Childhood Cancer Fund

My name is Elise. Last week our beautiful 2 year old son, Cody was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer known as Clear Cell Sarcoma of the Kidney.  Obviously, we are devasted and below is my first ever blog explaining in detail about the day we found out and our current situation. I am a stay at home mum and my husband is a Gyprock (Plasterboard) Fixer. He does not get annual leave or sick leave. Any days that he has off, we do not get paid for.

Fortunately, the medical scheme in Australia means that our Cody will be covered for his medical expenses. However, with my husband needing to take time off here and there, our daily living expenses are going to mount up.  Last week, he had a week off work, we don't get paid for that and we are currently unsure of how many days Ben will need off. We will need extra money to pay for our normal bills, as well as money to pay for petrol, parking and food at the hospital once he starts Chemotherapy which will be this week.

We don't expect a free ride, we don't have intentions of milking people. If you have a spare $5 to donate, that will pay for one morning of parking at the hospital. If you have a spare $20, that will pay for our dinner from Dominoes after a long day at the hospital, it all truly helps.

This is our story...

3rd April 2016

I have always wanted to start up my own blog, but i could never think of a subject matter intriguing enough to do it. I am a stay at home mum of two beautiful boys, Jack, 5 and Cody, 2 and my husband Ben is a Gyprock Fixer. Sure, i guess i could write about life as a stay at home mum and talk about my day to day shenanigans of poop stories, how to discipline kids, how to bake cookies and how to start toilet training, etc but now, none of those ‘normal’ day to day things seem of any importance now.

This last week has been the worst of our lives. With my insomnia kicking in, i thought of an idea, we wont be able to afford therapy, so my therapy will be just this, writing it all down. If i can get enough people to read my blog, it might be a good way to make a tiny bit of money on the side to help us out in the months ahead.

If the ‘C’ word offends you, yes, Cancer, grab your tissues now, or walk away because this is our cancer story.

In the last couple of weeks we noticed our Cody bear had a bit of a swollen tummy. We thought he was constipated so have been giving him lots to drink & purees, etc. On Monday morning he woke up crying and seemed very distressed, Ben pressed his tummy and he went hysterical. We’ve all had a round of colds so i was sick of going to our local GP, it was Ben’s turn, so Ben took Cody to the Doctors. I waited at home with Jack with not a care in the world, knowing full well that Ben would probably get sent home with a bottle of Coloxyl to get that turd out. My first bit of worry came when Ben got home and told me the Doctor wanted to arrange an Ultrasound on Cody’s tummy. Who would ultrasound constipation? Whatevs, seeing as the Monday was a public holiday, I’d just get the ultrasound done the next day.

Cody HATES being poked and prodded, so getting pictures of his tummy was flaming difficult, lots of crying. At the end the Radiographer was super smiley and seemed a little nervous, i started to sense something was wrong. She then told me she just needs to go in another room and have a closer look because apparently she just “takes the pictures”. She left the room and i sat with Cody in silence. waiting. and waiting.

Then i hear the PA speaker go off “Could we please get Dr. So & So to look at a scan in room 6 immediately”. My heart sank and i burst in to tears, this isn’t good. I said a quiet prayer while i waited. Finally, 3 or 4 professional looking people came back in the room, all with fake smiles.

“Hi Elise, and how are we going today?”
Me – “Just tell me what it is…”
“Ok, we’ve found something on Cody’s right kidney”
Me – “Is it poo? because he’s been constipated”
“No.”

At this point, they might as well have kicked me in the guts and it would’ve hurt less.
They continued…
“No, we’ve found a large mass on his kidney and we believe its a Tumor, we are booking you in to the Paediatrics outpatients right now for our head doctor to explain some more”
“Is it cancerous?”
“Yes”

The C word. He said my curly haired, blue eyed, train-loving baby has the C word inside his tiny body. There are no real words to describe how i felt. I guess i could say it felt like someone had come along, scooped all my insides out and left me a hollow shell. I was a mess. I rang Ben immediately in tears. Ben heard me crying and started crying too he starts shouting “What? what is it?” I let the words fall out “It, it, its a tumor, its a cancer tumor”. We both just cried. 

Ben arrived within 10 minutes, i saw him at the end of the hallway and Cody got excited and ran up to him saying “Daddy, daddy!” all excitedly. We all just held each other and cried in the hallway. 

When we finally did see the doctor, she told us that Cody has a 10cm mass on his right kidney and believes it is called Wilms Tumour. I wanted to do an Arnie and yell “ITS NOT A TUMOUR!” but there's a time and a place for Kindergarten Cop. She spoke a lot but i didn’t hear it all. She arranged for us to go to Women’s & Childrens hospital the next day for Cody to get a CT scan of the tumor because it will give us a better look of what we are dealing with.

The next day we returned to visit the Cancer ward and meet our Oncologist. She decided that Cody would need a biopsy just to confirm if it is Wilms Tumor, there's  a small chancce it might not be. He will aslo need surgery to remove the tumor and his right kidney.

They had to give him another General to do the biopsy. I couldn’t handle doing it again, so it was Ben’s turn. Ben was brave and took Cody in the room, while i waited outside, crying and praying. Ben returned 10 minutes later, eyes swollen from crying and agreed, that watching Cody’s body go limp from the General is just the worst. It is awful to watch, but a necessary evil.
After the biopsy when Cody woke up, he was once again hysterical, We spent from 5pm to 10pm, trying to calm him down until he eventually fell asleep. Ben went home and i slept at the hospital next to Cody. Absolute crap day.

The amount of messages, gifts and love from our family and friends has been truly overwhelming. Me and Ben feel so loved and we know we are going to get through this because of that network of support. Any problems we have or have ever had between ourselves or other people don’t matter anymore. All that matters right now is that Cody gets better. So yes, one day at a time. WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS!

– Elise x