An Angel. And a Handful.
New Year’s Eve, 2012, was not a night to celebrate for Susanne and Michael, Frankie’s parents.Frankie, then two, had been very lethargic Christmas Eve. Says his mom, “He wasn’t interested in anything; he just wanted to be cuddled.” Multiple paediatrician visits steered Susanne and Michael to SickKids on New Year’s Eve, where tests produced a diagnosis: acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).
Says Susanne, “Everything just blurred. In my head, I’m going, ‘Leukemia? It can’t be leukemia.’”
It was. For the first three weeks at SickKids, his parents alternated — one sleeping on the bed holding Frankie, one on the cot. Their whole cancer journey was hard for the family: a toddler diagnosed with cancer; three-and-a-half years of chemo; missing milestones because of Frankie’s hospitalization, like Frankie’s older sister Madalynn’s birthday.
Your legacy can help SickKids shine on for families like Frankie’s.
SickKids doctors took on Frankie’s cancer, and won. But what got Frankie and his family through their experience were the dimensions of SickKids that Susanne describes as “over and above.” She continues: “These kids are in a situation they don’t understand. They need that stuff (outside their medical situation) that they enjoy. Video games, for one.”
She also singles out SickKids nurses. “Kids don’t understand why they’re getting IV’d, why they’re being poked — but the nurses have this ability to come down to a kid’s level. It’s as simple as doing blood pressure with a cuff, and saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to give your arm a hug.’ That’s the kind of stuff that makes the kids shine on.”
Your legacy can help SickKids shine on for families like Frankie’s. Today, Susanne doesn’t have one healthy son on her hands. She has two. At school, “He’s an angel. At home,” she says, laughing, “he’s a handful.”
