LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

LITTLE JOEY WON’T LET CANCER CRUSH HIS CHEEKY SPIRIT

- Emma Levett

Pearls of laughter echo through the hospital room as Joey Potter finishes delivering his favourite joke, before diving into the next one.

“Knock knock,” two-year old Joey says, excitedly hopping from one foot to the other.

“Who’s there?” his mum, Kitty, smiles.

“Howard I know?!” shouts Joey, giggling with glee.

It’s a cute joke that Kitty, 36, and Joey’s dad Jack, 37, have heard dozens of times. But given what the family – and especially Joey – have been through over the last two years, they’ll take any excuse to smile.

When Joey was just five months old, the Potter family’s world was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive kidney cancer, Wilms’ tumour.

“Joey had a lump in his tummy which the doctor initially thought was constipation,” Kitty tells New Idea from Brisbane.

“After we saw blood in his nappy, Joey had an ultrasound and they found the tumour on his right kidney.

“He needed surgery to remove the tumour and the kidney, and then he went through 27 weeks of chemotherapy and had six doses of radiation.

“Joey was amazing,” Kitty continues. “He never really cried and I was so grateful he couldn’t understand.”