People used to cross the street when they saw Gill Gardener and her daughter Alison heading towards them, writes KATHERINE MacALISTER. "In supermarkets people would see Alison's bald head and then look at me in horror, as if it was my fault," said Gill.
"I wanted to get on a soapbox and tell everyone that it was cancer."
Six years ago Alison, then an 18-month-old baby, was diagnosed with leukaemia.
"We were told she had a 60 per cent chance of surviving, but without treatment she would be dead within six weeks," said Gill, of Cornwallis Road, Cowley.
"We lived at the hospital for the next eight months and then had 18 months of follow-up treatment.
She praises her family, friends and husband Martin for their support during that harrowing time, but her own strength shines through.
"I slept at the hospital next to Alison every night she was there. I went from shock to sadness to anger and then back to shock again. "I would lie awake at night wondering if Alison had leukaemia because of something I'd done.
"It was awful to sit and watch my baby in such pain. I would have done anything to have swapped places. Sometimes I wondered how much longer I could carry on."
Martin, an Oxford firefighter, kept her spirits up and the pair believe the ordeal made them stronger.
Gill said: "We had a strong marriage to start with but having been through it together the bond strengthened."
The couple first went to their GP about Alison when she became pale and weak. From the surgery they were sent straight to the John Radcliffe Hospital for tests. Four hours later the results came back.
Alison had acute lymphoblatic, the most common form of childhood leukaemia. Radiotherapy is not recommended for under-threes so instead Alison had a series of intensive injected chemotherapy treatments, then a break before more of the same until she went into remission. But the family could not breathe a sigh of relief for years afterwards until her immune system began working again.
Early on, Alison could not even play with other children.
"A common cold or cough could mean pneumonia for her," said Gill. "We only went on one holiday to see Martin's parents in Germany. Alison complained of a headache in the car and when we arrived we found three spots on her back. She had chicken pox.
"We were rushed to the nearest hospital in Munster, two hours away, and stayed in an isolation room for eight days.
"We were in a foreign country, it was winter, rainy and we didn't know where we were going.
"I think that was the lowest point. She was so ill when she arrived because she couldn't fight the chicken pox without the drugs." Gill could not contemplate having any more children - until doctors reassured her that the chances of her next child having the same thing were minimal.
"We realised it would give Alison something to focus on as well. We wanted her to have as normal a life as possible and not feel like she was different just because she had cancer.
Alison is now a healthy eight-year-old who's terribly fond of her five-year-old brother Fraser.
"She knows what could have happened and has asked if it could come back," said Gill, 36.
"It could but it is very unlikely. The thought of going through that again made me shiver but now, having had a break, I probably could."
Gill kept a diary throughout Alison's treatment. "I read it the other day. Some of it was very sad, but now it seems like a distant nightmare. You never think it's going to happen to you." What appalled Gill most was the reaction of the public. "People would keep their kids away when they saw us coming, as if it was contagious.
"But an illness like this makes you realise what's important in life. We don't get stressed about paying the gas bill any more."
SO WHAT IS LEUKAEMIA?
*Leukaemia is a cancer of the white blood cells, which are produced by the bone marrow
*Hardly anyone survived 30 years ago - now 25 per cent of adults and 70 per cent of kids do
*It's often thought of as a childhood cancer, but more than half of sufferers are aged over 60
*The Cancer Studies Unit is carrying out the most extensive leukaemia trials in the world. More than 4,000 children were treated in these studies between 1970 and 1990 and their survival improved substantially
*Doctors do not know what causes most leukaemias but research is being carried out in Oxford, especially regarding proximity of sufferers to nuclear establishments STAR'S TRAUMA
England soccer hero Gary Lineker's son George developed leukaemia in 1991 at the age of eight weeks. He later recovered at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Since then Gary and his wife Michelle have campaigned hard for cancer research and childhood cancer charity Clic.
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