Teen cancer victims need not be alone

Published on Monday 6 December 2010 12:32

SHE was facing the battle of her life - a teenager who'd already encountered the grief and physical turmoil of miscarriage, now staring at the nightmare of cancer.

Leona Ross was still only 19, far from a child, but not quite an adult. At that age, some things mean more than hospital talk of chemotherapy, surgery and what the future might really hold.

"All I wanted to know was whether or not I was going to lose my hair," she says softly. "It was the one thing I asked after they told me I had cancer."

Today, Leona is among a very select group of Scottish teenagers. For while their friends have the time of their lives hitting the clubs, planning their futures and enjoying being on the cusp of full-blown adulthood, she and her fellow cancer sufferers are in limbo as they fight to survive.

For them, battling a condition that means lengthy hospital stays, debilitating chemotherapy and side-effects which steal their youthful looks leaving them balding and their bodies inflated by steroids is particularly cruel.

Now, however, a campaign backed by Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman is on its way to raising 1.6 million towards making teenagers' cancer treatment a little more bearable, by creating two new cancer units in Edinburgh specifically aimed at accommodating their age group.

Since its East of Scotland Appeal was launched in March, the Teenage Cancer Trust has raised around 600,000 towards its final target. Eventually, assuming the astonishing rate of fundraising continues, it will be able to provide a new unit for adolescent patients at the Western General Hospital and one for younger teenagers at the new Sick Kids hospital when it is built.

• In isolation

For future cancer patients like Leona, the units will mean they can be treated with other young people who understand what they are going through and not end up alongside much older people in general cancer wards or very young children at the Sick Kids.

For young mum Leona, recuperating from the nightmare of surgery to remove a staggering 5lb tumour which had latched on to her left ovary was all the more challenging because she found herself isolated in a ward with much older people.

"I was treated at the Western General in an adult ward," recalls Leona, whose tumour was discovered in March, five months after she'd suffered a miscarriage.

"I didn't feel like mixing with anyone - they were mostly a lot older - so I just stayed on my own and didn't mix."

It was particularly hard for Leona, for she was also desperately missing her little boy Zak, who has just turned four."I didn't want him to visit me because I knew it would be hard when it came time for him to leave," adds Leona, who lives in Touch in Dunfermline but was treated at the Western.

Instead, she spent hours watching television or playing video games, feeling there was no-one around of the same age who could understand how she felt.

That's something Rachel Cameron can sympathise with. Just 14, she has spent two years battling leukaemia, most of it surrounded by much younger children in the Sick Kids'.

It was as she was undergoing chemotherapy there that she suffered multiple side effects, including two strokes which affected her face, her speech and movement down her left side.

Being isolated from her friends and people her own age didn't help.

"I missed my friends," she says. "I couldn't get a decent phone signal in hospital, so it was hard to keep in touch. It got a bit depressing.

"The times I stayed in the hospital's Teenage Cancer Rooms, though, was much better. They had a Wii, computers, an Xbox, PlayStation . . . it meant you weren't bored all the time."

Rachel, from Armadale, was 12 when she started to feel lethargic and bruises appeared for no apparent reason on her pale skin. A blood test confirmed leukaemia.

"Being in hospital was hard because there were so many young children. They'd wake up at night and be noisy, or the television would go on at 6am with little kids' programmes so I felt I didn't get a chance to rest."

The need for special facilities for teenage cancer patients was recognised in 2007 when the first Scottish Teenage Cancer Trust unit opened at the Beatson clinic in Glasgow, followed by the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh last year.

As well as psychological benefits, the TCT units allow young people to support each other, access more leisure facilities suitable for their age group and catch up on school work.

The East of Scotland appeal was launched in March by radio presenter Bowman, who said at the time that every teenager who needs access to one of these units "should have that right".

It has been backed by various local celebrities including hairdresser Charlie Miller, who styles real hair wigs for cancer patients under their Hair4U scheme, Hibs owner Tom Farmer and Hearts FC.

Although she was almost out of her teens when she was struck by a devastating brain tumour, Michaela Waddell still felt out of place in an adult hospital ward.

A scan just before last Christmas revealed a tumour the size of an orange. Surgery removed 90 per cent of it, but as she recovered at the Western General, the student illustrator was desperate for companionship.

"I felt the ward was full of mostly old men," says Michaela, 20, of Fairmilehead, "and the few women were much older.

"I just didn't have anything in common with them. I felt like the odd one out. Even when I went to the toilet I felt everyone was looking at me because I was younger."Being in a teenage unit would have made it much more enjoyable to be in hospital."

Like the others, Michaela, whose headaches were originally put down to migraine, suffered side effects from chemotherapy which have caused hair loss and weight gain.

But she's hopeful that a scan tomorrow will show her tumour is now shrinking and that she can begin to plan her future again.

"It's been tough," she says. "I've lost my independence and my confidence.

"I can't wear high heels any more. The tumour pressed against part of the brain that controls my left side, so my left foot has been affected. If I go out with my friends shopping, I'm always the one struggling to keep up."

But, she adds, there have been some positives in a grim situation. Her illness has brought her closer to her family than ever before.

"Last Christmas wasn't very good, so we'll make the most of this one.

"This has changed me. It's made me more determined to do what I want to do with my life and make the most of it all."

n To support the Teenage Cancer Trust's appeal to fund new cancer units for young people, visit www.teenagecancertrust.org