Three-year-old Rohan lives near Wakefield with mum Penny, dad Warren and brother Elliott. Rohan was just five months old in 2023 when mum, Penny, noticed several small, solid lumps on his head.
After hospital checks and an urgent late-night call, Penny and dad, Warren, were told to get to Leeds General Infirmary as fast as possible.
There, the family received the devastating news that Rohan had an aggressive form of blood cancer known as acute myeloid leukaemia. He’d had no other symptoms. Life changed overnight for the family, and Penny and Rohan spent most of the next six and a half months in hospital.
Penny says, “The first time you come onto the ward, it’s a shock. It’s daunting and traumatic to see so many poorly children before it becomes normal to you. You never think this is going to happen to your child.”
“From not being poorly at all, he got very ill, very quickly. They started his chemo four days after we first went in. He had an emergency PICC line fitted (a tube inserted into a vein in the upper arm) because he wasn’t able to get in for surgery for a central line. They ran his first lot of chemo through the PICC line which was difficult as well because, being a baby, he was moving his arms all the time, so it wasn’t particularly stable,” Penny says.
“Rohan was the youngest on the ward for quite a while, and then some other babies came in, so we were kept together. It made sense, but it could be carnage because they’d be sleeping and waking at different times and disturbing each other.”
Rohan also suffered badly from mucositis – a side effect of treatment causing mouth ulcers so severe he couldn’t feed and required a food replacement to be delivered through his bloodstream. He had four months of chemotherapy, thankfully responding well to the treatment and entering remission.
Throughout their journey, Candlelighters supported the family, helping to ease the emotional, practical and financial impacts wherever possible. Candlelighters staff spent time with Rohan so Penny could take short breaks to get food and drink and look after herself. The pair also spent time in the Candlelighters Pavilion every day, which Penny describes as a “haven” that provided a calm space away from the busy ward.
“If you met Rohan now, you’d have no idea he was ever ill. I was expecting him to be physically or even emotionally behind because of everything that happened during those key developmental stages, but we haven’t had that experience at all. He’s physically thriving, so active and capable. He speaks with a thick Yorkshire accent, and he’s been riding a bike since he was two.”
Penny continues, “There’s nothing I or anybody could say that could prepare anybody for the journey of dealing with childhood cancer. Even the people closest to you who love you can’t truly understand like other people who have been on the same journey. They’re the only ones who can really know what it feels like and what you go through.”
“You can’t know what that environment is like and what help is needed until you walk through those doors. Candlelighters get it because they’re on that ward every day.”
Thank you so much to Penny for sharing her family’s story and helping to raise awareness about the impacts of childhood cancer.
And thank you to everyone who so kindly supports Candlelighters, making it possible to provide vital emotional, practical and financial support to families like Rohan’s across Yorkshire.
If you’d like to support children and young people with cancer, you can donate to Candlelighters here.
