The mother of a toddler born with a rare form of childhood cancer is urging fundraisers to join her in taking part in this year’s Relay For Life event to raise awareness of the condition suffered by her son.
Brave Claire Ball, of Daimler Drive in Dunstable, was heartbroken when she learned that her son Michael was suffering from neuroblastoma aged just 17 days in 2009.
The devastating news came after endless tests at different hospitals with doctors attempting to find out why little Michael was born with an extremely enlarged liver.
Claire told the H&P: “He was four days old and we were taken into a room and told that we were going to lose him.
“They didn’t know what was wrong with him, his liver just kept growing.”
But Claire’s relief at a diagnosis finally being made quickly turned to despair when it dawned on her that her youngest child had a form of cancer.
She said: “I sat in the waiting room in the hospital and I noticed the number of children who had no hair and were on chemotherapy drips.
“You don’t think that a baby can be born with cancer.”
Three-and-a-bit years on, Michael’s cancer is now inactive, but for mum Claire every day is a battle against the illness as it could return again at any time throughout the now three-year-old’s childhood.
Claire said: “Michael’s doing brilliantly now, he’s such a lovely little boy. But we’re under no illusion that everything can turn in a heartbeat. Cancer doesn’t care about your skin colour, sex or age.”
As well as Michael’s battle with cancer, Claire also lost both her parents to the illness.
So her, Michael and her elder son Stephen, who she says has been ‘incredible’ throughout Michael’s illness, are taking part in this year’s Relay for Life in aid of Cancer Research at Stockwood Park. The event sees teams of eight to 15 people take part in an overnight relay on September 8 and 9.
Team members take it in turns to walk around the park’s athletics track for 24 hours while everyone else enjoys a wide range of fun activities on offer or catches up on some rest.
Claire said: “This is the first year that we’ve done the event because the first couple of years it was still very raw.
“This isn’t going to go away for us and now is the time to give something back.”
For more information on how to enter Relay For Life, visit www.relay.cancerresearchuk.org or call 08716 41 26 02.