Cancer charity to support parents (From Surrey Comet)

Cancer charity to support parents

4:19pm Friday 14th May 2004 in

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Little Joshua Coppellotti is bouncing around in a Superman costume when his mum Jacquie opens the door of her East Molesey home to me.

It is hard to imagine the energetic four-year-old is being treated for a brain tumour, but he has gone through two hard years of operations, blood tests and chemotherapy to get to this point.

Jacquie's friend Alison Trigg, whose daughter is receiving similar treatment for leukaemia, said: "Things you think you would never be able to put up with, they just sit there and take."

The women have teamed up with Kingston Hospital children's ward oncology co-ordinator Bianca Effemey and consultant Andy Windrow to form a new support group for parents of child cancer sufferers.

The group, called Momentum, launched yesterday, aims to end the isolation that Kingston and Surrey parents feel after they have received what is among the worst possible news any parent could hear.

The women plan to register the group as a charity so they can raise money towards outings for the children, days off for parents and more specialised facilities at the hospital.

Cancer is relatively rare in children, affecting about one in every 650, and when Joshua was first diagnosed, Jacquie searched desperately for other local people in her position for some mutual support.

But there was no support group in the area and although Alison lived just half a mile away and her daughter Yasmin was being diagnosed around the same time, the two women did not make contact for another two years.

The women received great support from their husbands and the hospital, but said speaking to someone who had gone through the experience before would have been a tremendous help.

Alison said: "Initially it was horrendous trying to come to terms with it.

"That's why we want to have a group to try to alleviate some of the traumas you do go through by helping people with tensions we are familiar with."

Yasmin, five, is also making good progress but still has daily chemotherapy treatment, regular injections and blood tests.

Chemotherapy undermines the immune system, so it is sometimes difficult for the children to socialise for fear of catching a bug.

Children spend a lot of time in hospital during treatment, but if their blood count is particularly low they cannot even use the hospital's play room and need to have toys cleaned and brought out for them.

Jacquie said: "All the children know there's this wonderful play room there and they are literally clawing at the door."

The group hopes to set up a special sterile play room in the hospital for cancer sufferers.

The intensive treatment can also have side effects, causing deafness, liver problems and hair loss.

Alison said: "Yasmin found it very hard when she went back to school after she lost her hair and people called her a little boy."

Alison and Jacquie say their children's illness turned their lives upside down.

But they are determined to draw something positive out of it and help provide a glimmer of hope and support to others in the same position.

They chose the name Momentum because it is defined in the dictionary as impact, force, drive, power and strength which were all attributes shared by their children.

Joshua has changed out of his Superman costume and into a Thunderbirds outfit but seeing him run around the garden now, it is hard to disagree.

For more information about Momentum or to donate money, call Bianca on 020 8546 7711 extension 2328.

sbrody@london.newsquest.co.uk