“It’s Horrific.” That's what Christina Teauge remembers of her time watching her son get chemotherapy. Now she and her husband are undertaking a mammoth physical challenge to try and help ensure no child has to go through it again.
Reuben, now five, is a thriving little boy now cancer free and enjoying life in reception at his school. However, he did not always look this way. Christina, 36, told SurreyLive “We've got three children, Reuben's the eldest. When he had just turned one, we discovered that he had a huge tumour on his liver. It turned out it was a cancer called hepatoblastoma which is incredibly rare, something like nine children a year on average, get it in the UK.
“It required removing, obviously, initially which was done up in London, and then we were part of a clinical trial, which was basically to try and do less chemotherapy on children, because obviously chemotherapy can be quite damaging.”
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Unfortunately, nine months later doctors discovered that the cancer had come back. With the knowledge it had now spread to his lungs, Rueben was started on a very intensive chemotherapy course. Christina said: “Initially because he just had the light touch chemo there was very little that we would notice but then the second time around when he was having the intensive stuff essentially he was just you know poisoned because that's what chemotherapy is. We spent 64 nights in hospital with him for that second year. He lost all of his hair all the way down to his eyelashes and eyebrows. He was completely hairless. He lost the ability to walk. He had to relearn.”
What made matters worse is that during this dark period, Pandemic restrictions were still in place meaning that his mum and dad needed to swap out being with Reuben and his six-month-old little brother.
However, after 10 rounds of treatment, Reuben was declared cancer free and could start recovering. His mum said “We want to almost draw a line under it. We've always said we would do one big thing. Chemotherapy is just horrific, and so we're really keen to just whatever little we can raise for the research aspect just to stop it being quite so damaging so that cancer treatment is just nicer.”
To raise money for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity the couple, who live near Sutton, are embarking on an incredible challenge, climbing Scafell Pike before cycling roughly 240 miles overnight, before completing Ben Nevis.
Christina said “We do quite a lot of Triathlon, my husband and I, so we knew that no one would give us money to run a 5k. We knew that it had to be something sporty and it had to be something that took a few days and we just sort of settled on this idea.
“I think I am looking forward to it. I reckon it's going to take us about 16 hours to cycle overnight and I’ve never cycled that far before. I think it'll be fun and awful at the same time.”
The money is going to the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, for multiple reasons. Firstly the family was treated there but also the amount of research they do. Chistina said: “I think that's kind of our priority because we just want them to find a way out of the horrible treatments. We are massively passionate about how cancer treatment needs to be improved from a scientific perspective. The only way to make it better for everybody in the end is to just research the hell out of it.”
“Marsden is very unique in what it provides for Paediatric Cancer Care. For example, one thing that sticks out in my mind is that they have their own kitchen for the cancer children because when you're going through cancer treatment, very few children want to eat. When they do eat they want very specific things and they have a kitchen at The Marsden which will basically make whatever you request because they know how important it is to be able to do that.”
Chirstina says she doesn’t enjoy asking for money but the couple is hoping to raise around £10,000. You can find more information and donate here.
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