Bethan's story

Diagnosis and treatment

It’s not something you would expect to happen to your four-year-old daughter. But unfortunately it can and does happen.

Bethan had been unwell with several infections and was exhausted. She began to lose interest in the things she usually enjoyed. She was always such an outgoing child and loved to be out doing something all the time so we had an idea that something was not quite right.

But when we received the news that she had leukaemia and would need just over two years of chemotherapy, we were devastated. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing and it was life-changing for us.

During the first few weeks of her treatment Bethan became weak and began to lose her hair from the chemotherapy. She started to look like a different child. We wondered if she would ever get back to normal.

It was heartbreaking to see your child go through this. Instead of doing the usual things a four year old would do, she was in hospital having endless blood tests, medicines and lumbar punctures. Sometimes she would scream so much.

Achieving remission but susceptible to relapse

After the first five weeks of chemotherapy Bethan went into remission and, as the treatments decreased in intensity, she started to get back to her old self. She had a central line put in to enable her to have blood taken and medication given to save her the pain of injections and blood tests.

Although she achieved remission, Bethan’s minimal residue disease (MRD) result revealed that she was susceptible to relapse. MRD testing is a new technique used to detect the likelihood of relapse.

Her doctors decided that she must complete the full two years of treatment as a precaution. We try and remain as positive as we can which is very hard sometimes when you have to watch her go through all this treatment. Over two years of treatment is a long time so we feel it is important to carry on as normal as we can and for Bethan’s brother Jamie.

How you can help

If you’ve been touched by Bethan’s journey, help us invest in the high quality research that really matters which would otherwise go unfunded.

This helps to support children with cancer so they can be with their families for longer.

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