Heal For The Brave

Hi, this is Jo. My 14 year old grandson Oscar was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukeamia (ALL) on Saturday 4th February and is presently in the Lady Cilento Childrens Hospital in Brisbane. His mum Kylie has been staying with him 24/7 sleeping on a bed in his room. Please excuse not having a photo of Oscar as I am complying with his wishes. His two siblings Hannah 17 years old and Archie 10 years old are at home on the Sunshine Coast. Archie is staying with me 24/7, while Hannah being older is alternating between her home and my place. Oscar has endured platelet transfusions, different blood cell transfusions, chemo, lumbar punctures and a bone marrow operation amongst other things. He did have cancer cells in his spinal fluid, but thankful his last lumbar puncture showed that the cancer cells were gone. But he has to have two more lumbar punctures to make sure that the cancer cells are totally gone. 3 Clear lumbar punctures needed. These knock Oscar around dreadfully. Oscar and Kylie are hoping to leave the hospital by the end of this week, if he can stand up on his own. At present he cannot do this. They will then stay in accommodation in Brisbane for about a month as Oscar needs to visit the hospital each day, as he still has to have more lumbar punctures and chemo. He is being so brave. We had no idea that he had this disease. We were at a school swimming carnival on Thursday 2nd February. Oscar did one swim and won, he is a good swimmer. He dived into the pool to do the second swim and couldnt make it 25 metres. He got himself out of the pool and came over to me and said he wasn't feeling well and he wanted to go home. So we did. Kylie took him to the doctor on Friday where he had blood tests. She was rung early Saturday morning and told to take him straight to the Nambour Hospital. Kylie and Oscar were admitted to Lady Cilento Saturday afternoon. As you can imagine it has put tremendous stress on the whole family and sent our daily routines into a total shambles. The emotional and physical stress is bad enough but there is also the financial burden that this type of stiuation puts on the whole family. The extra fuel that is being spent to travel back and forwards from the coast to the hospital/accommodation. Setting up the accommodation with food and toiletries. Fuel costs from the accommodation to the hospital. Into the future: once Oscar can come home to the coast he will still have to travel back to the hospital each month. Medications, like pain killers etc and numerous other things that are not on our everyday grocery bills. Thank you to all those people who have already given so selflessly in many different ways. Any financial help that can be given quickly to help aliviate the financial burden for my family will be greatly appreciated.