In her short few years, Avery Beal has overcome more than most people do in a lifetime.
After being diagnosed with leukaemia as a 10-month-old, the little girl’s first two years were spent mostly bed-bound, hooked up to beeping machines and surrounded by strange doctors. Her mother Jen rode every bump and twist in the road with her, living in the Brisbane hospital, while dad David was more than 100 kilometres away, caring for Avery’s five siblings.
Her condition was so serious it necessitated a bone marrow transplant.
“[There are] higher chances of getting other cancers like breast cancer and thyroid cancer, not being able to have children,” Jen told The Project on Monday night of the risks associated with the invasive and painful stem cell transplantation.
“We’ll have to tell her that at some point, she is too young to really understand it now.”
Yet after 97 days in remission, the phone call every parent of a cancer patient dreads came: the cancer was back.
“They just did another test before they let us go home. I just knew once I got the call, I had that horrible feeling. The leukaemia was back again. We were starting all over again.”
By the time Avery was three, she had two bone marrow transplants under her belt.
“It was definitely tougher the second time around,” Jen said. “She was very sick, her legs just ached. She couldn’t walk or move around. It was also the first time that we actually had to watch her lose her hair.”
