Polly was three years old, just months from her fourth birthday, when her parents Claire and Michael got the diagnosis no parent can prepare for. A malignant brain tumour. Surgery the next morning.

The operation took 14 hours. The surgeons achieved a full resection. Polly survived. And then the real work began.

Over the following months, Polly had to relearn how to crawl. Then walk. She endured 6 months of intense chemotherapy in Australia at the wonderful Royal Children's Hospital, then the family packed up and flew to the United States for 12 weeks of proton radiation therapy, a treatment not available at home, where Polly had to be under general anaesthesia every single day. They left Australia in October 2025. They came home in January 2026.

Polly is now in remission. She is fierce, funny, and still flashing peace signs.

She is also living with the lasting effects of posterior fossa syndrome, a neurological condition caused by the surgery itself, which affects her balance, mobility, emotional regulation, and development in ways that shift day to day and cannot be predicted or scheduled.

This is what life looks like now:

Polly requires constant supervision. She co-sleeps every night. She attends medical appointments every week. She does daily physical and occupational therapy. Every quarterly MRI involves general anesthesia, preparation, and recovery. Her immune system needs monitoring. At any moment, the family may need to drop everything and respond, and that moment can come without warning.

Claire and Michael have two other children, Jemima and Rupert, who have watched their little sister fight for her life and who also need stable, present parents.

Both Claire and Michael stepped away from work to care for Polly full-time. Returning to conventional employment isn't possible right now. Not because they don't want to, but because Polly's needs are genuinely incompatible with a fixed schedule, and the cost of getting that wrong is too high.

The Jacketts have not been walking this road alone. When Polly was in hospital and her parents couldn't be anywhere else, their community showed up. With meals on the doorstep, with fundraising that helped carry the family through her first year of treatment and made the trip to the United States possible. That generosity was not taken for granted. It was the reason they made it this far. This campaign is the next chapter of the same story: the people who love this family making sure they can keep going.

The financial reality is simple and brutal:

The family's baseline cost of living, housing, food, medical logistics, and the everyday running of a family of five is approximately $10,000 per month. They receive Centrelink Carer support, which helps but doesn't come close to covering it.

They are not asking for comfort. They are asking to stay in their home and keep Polly's care uninterrupted through the most critical year of her five-year monitoring period.

That's why the goal is $100,000.

This campaign covers nine months through to the end of 2026, enough to see Polly through this critical first year of monitoring without the family having to ask again. Claire and Michael are working to generate income in whatever ways Polly's care allows, but the gap is real, the runway is short, and the need is now.

Every dollar goes directly to keeping this family stable: rent, groceries, petrol to appointments, and the ability for both parents to be present when Polly needs them, which is every day.

What Polly's recovery actually requires is parents who aren't in crisis.

If you've ever wanted to do something for a family going through the unthinkable, this is a direct way to do it. No charity overhead. No middleman. Straight to the people who need it.

Share this if you can't give. Give if you can. Either matters.

The Jacketts are not people who ask for help easily; the fact that they're asking now tells you everything.