This is the side of cancer one devastated father wants the world to see.
Andy Whelan is an electrician from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, whose four-year-old daughter has been given just weeks to live.
He shared this photograph of Jessica on his Facebook page, ‘Jessica
Whelan – A fight against Neuroblastoma’, where it has had more than
7,800 reactions and over 3,200 shares.
‘As a photographer it is important to capture the truth and the
reality of the situation,’ Andy wrote. ‘Too easy it becomes to capture
the joy of life whilst discarding the torture that we see.
‘This is the hardest photograph I have ever made, it is in fact my own four-year-old daughter.’
He explained that she had been given her diagnosis just a few days
earlier, after battling against cancer for more than 12 months.
This photograph was made in a moment that we as parents could offer
her no comfort, her pushing us away whilst she rode out this searing
pain in solitude,’ he continued.
‘This sadly, for us as a family, is not a sight that we see rarely.
This is now a familiar sight that we see regularly through each day and
night, its frequency now more often.
‘This is the true face of cancer, my baby girl’s blood vessels
protruding from beneath her skin, a solitary tear running down her
cheek, her body stiffened and her face contorted in pain.’
Jessica was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma in September
2015, after initially being wrongly diagnosed as having a bone
infection.
Just as she was about to be discharged after a 10-week hospital stay, doctors decided to examine her one more time.
It was then that they found a mass around her liver. After an MRI
scan the next day, doctors broke the news that Jessica had cancer.
Jessica started chemotherapy treatment before being put on a clinical
drug trial – but at a three-month check-up, doctors found the tumour
was exactly the same size. It hadn’t shrunk at all.
Treatment continued, but consultants started looking at prolonging Jessica’s life rather than curing the disease.
And then in October, sadly, her oncologist found that the cancer had spread to other areas of her body.
Andy and Nicki, Jessica’s mum, then made the decision to end their daughter’s treatment and let her enjoy the time she has left.
‘If this photograph only serves as a purpose to make people think
twice about this evil and put into perspective what it does to a child
then it has achieved its purpose,’ Andy wrote on the photo.
‘Research needs to be done, cures need to be found – too long now has
this been allowed to happen. Please, I beg of you, as a heartbroken
father, it is too late for my daughter, but childhood cancer needs to be
cured.
‘No family should have to go through this hell.’
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