It took two weeks before Kelly Finch could say out loud that her two-year-old daughter Olivia had been diagnosed with cancer. The two-year-old had been vomiting for more than 40 days and was having difficulty walking, but her parents were not prepared for the worst news possible.
The family's journey into a nightmare began at the start of December last year, when Olivia started being unwell. Kelly and her husband Nick were on a rare weekend away, when they called home to hear their youngest daughter was not feeling very well.
"Olivia had been sick, but we just thought she had a bug and we came home earlier than we had planned, thinking it was just a sickness thing she had picked up, " remembers Kelly, from Bryn, Neath Port Talbot. "She had bumped her head too, so we were a bit concerned that she might have some concussion, so when she was still being sick a few days later, we took her to the GP to get her checked out."
But the vomiting still didn't stop and the toddler was sent to the hospital in Bridgend, where they carried out an ultrasound scan and took a series of blood tests. Unable to find anything of major concern, doctors thought it might be some sort of infection, or even a vomiting syndrome.
"We were in and out of hospital all over Christmas, and I was getting frustrated because I just knew she wasn't right, we had no idea it was cancer, but no-one was listening to me," says primary school teacher Kelly. "At the beginning of January Olivia's condition got worse. She cried for a full five days and nights. She just looked in so much pain, and she had been being sick for more than 40 days.
"We thought maybe she was out of routine because we had been in and out of hospital so much, and wondered if we needed to go back to controlled crying to help her get some sleep, but you could see her eyes were full of fear, and she was scared."
When Olivia stopped being able to walk and stopped eating, her terrified parents took her back to hospital and they were sent to the Noah's Ark hospital in Cardiff.
"When we told the doctor heard how she had been, they were very concerned and decided to carry out a full MRI scan," explains Kelly.
It was not long before the results were back and Olivia's parents were given the devastating news that doctors had found a tumour on their daughter's spine and liver, and she was going to have to be treated for stage four neuroblastoma, a rare but aggressive cancer that affects babies and small children. It has a 50% chance of survival rate.
"I have never felt pain like it," admits Kelly, who immediately after diagnosis had to self isolate with her young daughter in hospital because someone else on the ward they were on had tested positive for coronavirus. "Telling my family was one of the most difficult parts, I couldn't say it out loud. My parents were told, but I couldn't tell my brother, they had to do it for me. We had to phone them from hospital, and had to ask them to look after our older daughter Megan who is five.
"I couldn't talk about it for two weeks, so I asked them to tell people for me. I just couldn't say it out loud. Couldn't say those words 'Olivia has cancer'. I didn't mind people knowing, I just couldn't say it myself."
Word soon spread around the close-knit community that there was a family in need, and when they heard how a clinical trial in America might be able to help Olivia, the fundraising started to get her there was launched on March 1.
Just over a month later, and £150,000 of the £250,000 needed for the trip to America has already been raised, thanks to from events that have taken part all over Wales, and even some in South Africa and as far away as Australia.
Olivia's chances of survival are drastically reduced to around 5% if she relapses, but there is a vaccine in America that could help prevent that happening.
The treatment being trialled at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York is called a Bivalent Vaccine and can reduce the chance of the Neuroblastoma returning, but is not currently available in the UK.
"The support we have had has been beyond our wildest dreams," says Kelly. "People have been amazing. My best friend has been helping to organise events because we have to concentrate on Olivia, and wouldn't be able to cope with organising that too. People have been amazing. Some of my friends, who I have known since nursery, have been batch cooking for us, and bringing meals to the hospital.
"We wouldn't be able to afford to have takeaways sent to the hospital every day, and being able to eat a home cooked meal is so important. They want to help and providing those meals means so much in a lot of different ways. My work has been fantastic too, and so supportive and that takes a big burden off our shoulders.
"So many people amazing, and the sheer generosity of people has been unbelievable, and the boost it gives to our morale, you just can't put into words how much it means to us."
Olivia has recently finished her first 80-day induction of chemotherapy and responded well to the treatment, so everyone is hopeful that will help her through the next stages of her 18-month treatment. She is due to have surgery to remove the main tumour on her spine at the end of April, before having a course of high dose chemotherapy that will be extremely gruelling for her and her family. When she recovers from that, radiotherapy and immunotherapy will follow.
"We are preparing ourselves for the surgery because we will not be able to be with Olivia after the operation as she will have to go into a special intensive care area where we will not be allowed. We have had to make a lot of very difficult decisions that you should never have to make for a two-year-old," says Kelly. "But she is such a positive child and has been amazing.
"She is so young that she thinks all children go those and has been asking when her friends will have to go to the doctor's house, her name for the hospital. She has always been a fierce and independent child. She refused a bottle when she was a tiny baby, so it was me and her together for months.
"Olivia has got this amazing spirit that is getting her, and us, through this. That and the amazing support we have around us. She continues to amaze us with her resilience, smiles and giggles in spite of the gruelling chemotherapy plan she’s on. We thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for any donation that has been given. Olivia is going to beat cancer and we will get her to America with all your support and help"
To find out more about the fundaising, you can visit the justgiving page here.
