'Your Child Has Cancer'

Each year, about 50 Kiwi children are diagnosed with leukaemia. For one Rotorua family that devastating diagnosis came not once, but twice. As the Child Cancer Foundation marks its 40th anniversary, Suzanne McFadden talks to the McMillan family about how cancer made them stronger.

- Suzanne McFadden

They are four words Anne-Marie McMillan never wanted to hear: “Your child has cancer.” Living through it once was harrowing enough. But to be delivered that diagnosis twice was like a heartless form of torture.

Anne-Marie and her husband, Glen, still find it hard to fathom. They are parents in a typical Kiwi family living in Rotorua; she’s an early childhood teacher, he’s a maintenance planner, and together they have three kids – Kimberly, Josh and Natasha.

But what sets them apart from friends and neighbours is that two of their three children have had cancer – and the exact same cancer, even though there is no known hereditary or genetic link. “Basically, we were told that for both of our children to have it was simply bad luck,” Anne-Marie says.

Kimberly and Josh, the two eldest McMillan children, were both diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukaemia (ALL), although their illnesses were five years apart. The way the cancer affected them was different; the way their bodies handled the exhaustive treatment was poles apart.

But today, both children are happy, confident young adults who are clear of cancer – living their lives to the full, as much as they possibly can.

Kimberly, now 22, is a paediatric nurse, determined to “give back” after many years receiving hospital care. “I love working in the children’s surgical ward at Waikato Hospital. I guess I have an empathy for children who are sick and have to spend so much time in hospitals,” she says.

Nineteen-year-old Josh has just started university, studying for a degree in construction, although he dreams of being in the military, like his dad once was. But for now, the side effects of his treatment form a barrier.