"Hello buddy"
[loud breathing]
"You're just resting"
I think every parent sees cancer, and it's your baby.
One of your babies.
It's hard, but then you also think
we can beat it
I know it's a small chance
but it's a chance.
"Can mummy have a kiss?
[babbling]
He was diagnosed at 18 months of age with stage 4 high risk Hepatoblastoma
which is a rare form of childhood liver cancer.
"Hi Fin" "Hi Daddy"
You look at him and I can't imagine him not being here
I can't imagine him running out with his little feet going pitter patter past here
and asking for a chocolate milk.
All those sort of silly things - I can't imagine not hearing it.
I can't imagine us being a family of four not five.
"What's that? Is that your new sore?"
All up, Finlay has had 11 rounds of high dose intensive chemotherapy
which were 21 day cycles
and involved over 80 doses of chemo.
He's had nine surgeries.
He's been in intensive care four times.
He's had countless CT scans, MRIs, blood transfusions
the list goes on.
[happy chatter]
When we actually found out we were down in the ward.
You go to the ward and you see how many children are actually in the same boat.
And then that's when it really takes you.
You go okay, this is not good.
[crying]
Childhood cancer kills more children in Australia than anything else but accidents.
It's the leading cause of death by disease.
We can cure about 70% of cancers now across the board
but even amongst that 70% who survive, there's a lot of severe side effects
and they have lifelong problems from it
so it's quite a devastating diagnosis
even in the children that do survive
and of course the 30% that die
it's just horrendous.
[making drum noise]
He got sick,
he got really sick, and that personality dimmed a bit
but it was still him
he was just dealing with it
he was still full of life even when he was really, really sick
and obviously now that he's a bit better
he's just amazing
I just realized how sick he actually was.
All of us here at Telethon Kids are motivated by making a difference for children with cancer and their families
That's the driving motivation for every one of us here.
The ultimate goal of course is to reduce the number of deaths associated
with paediatric cancer and childhood cancers
but also importantly to find safer therapies that leave less damage to these young children
therapies that don't cause the side effects that we see now.
The way I see it is you're never ever going to be out of the woods.
We just live in the woods now
but I feel like now we're on a safer path.
Really two words 'child' and 'cancer'
shouldn't go together.
We're just hoping that everyone can just keep supporting the research
and the people that are doing things for these kids.
Whenever we meet a new family your heart breaks.
You don't want to see them go through what we had to go through,
you don't want to know that any other child has got to go through that.
I see children in the playgrounds and in the parks
and you know, just out and about
and I just think: it could happen to any of you and I don't want it to.