Fighting back
Zoë Mae Nel was diagnosed with standard risk medulloblastoma (a brain tumour) two years ago when she was 12 years old. “Our world fell apart,” says her mother, Marie.
Zoë had symptoms for about three months before her diagnosis, but none seemed serious. “She was a little off balance and sometimes tired. Later she developed headaches, and in the last month before we went to the hospital, she began vomiting in the early mornings,” recalls Marie.
After some tests in hospital, a CT scan revealed a golfball-sized tumour in her brain.
Zoë’s treatment started immediately: first a resection (surgical removal of the tumour) at Panorama Hospital, then six weeks of radiotherapy at Groote Schuur Hospital and six cycles of chemotherapy at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.
“Treating children’s cancer is about following the rules; it’s not cooking, it’s not a bit of this and a bit of that,” says Zoë’s paediatric oncologist at Red Cross, Dr Marc Hendricks. “We follow the treatment plan, and that means everything else in life takes a back seat.” This was particularly challenging for the Nels who travelled 900 kilometres from Kakamas to Cape Town for treatment.
“Many of us are so full of fear when we hear the word cancer – there is too much copy and paste of others’ experiences – we bring so much of that baggage to our own challenges. Understanding your own situation from day one, and knowing that it is entirely different to the person in the next bed, even if they have the same diagnosis, is not only empowering but it puts a lid on rampant anxiety and makes your experience more controlled,” he says.
It’s also important to remember that paediatric cancer is different to adult cancer.
The most common children’s cancers are found in developing cells, such as bone marrow (leukaemia), lymph nodes (lymphoma), the brain (tumour), kidneys and the nervous system. Often children have more aggressive tumours, but they are more responsive to treatment, and have a better chance of cure than adults. The five-year survival rate for medulloblastoma is 70-80%.
We all have a beginning and an end, that is what we all have in common, but its what we do with what’s in the middle that counts. Young people show us how to live in the moment; it’s an amazing perspective that provides protection for young people, says Marc.
“When I first met Zoë, she was as quiet as a mouse; but by the end of her treatment she had undergone a wonderful transformation,” says Marc. “She blossomed in her confidence, her ability to speak about things that are worrying her, she found her voice, and her own opinions. She has emerged stronger and that truly is a blessing.”
Zoë has now been in remission for more than a year and goes from strength to strength. She continues to have six-monthly check ups. After seven and a half months away from school she returned to take up the role of prefect in grade 7 (she was appointed while she was away having treatment). Now in grade 8 at Martin Oosthuizen High School, where she excels in maths, she continues with her ballet, singing and piano. She doesn’t play contact sports anymore and keeps her riding to around the farm, but she dreams of maybe studying physiotherapy, or some sort of veterinary therapy.
Her family and her doctors have seen Zoë and her fighting spirit grow. She knows that nothing that comes to her in life will be more challenging than this. She has survived this with faith, hope and joy, and she will survive anything. She has big dreams and nothing is going to stop her.
Discovery Health Press Release – Fighting Childhood Cancer
More information on childhood cancer is provided in the Health Matters : Childhood Cancer