Our story started in 2012 when my 14 year old daughter came to me complaining that a lump on the crown of her head was causing her problems. When I looked at it I thought 'what the hell is that'. I made an appointment at the doctors. As soon as the doctor saw the lump she referred us to the hospital. After an initial consultation the surgeon said he thought it may be some kind of fungal infection but would like to remove the lump and send it to pathology. After a few weeks the lump was removed in day surgery. Two weeks later whilst at work, I received a phone call asking me to take my daughter to the hospital for an appointment with the surgeon the next day. alarm bells were now ringing.
During the two weeks before the surgeons call my daughter had started to complain of a painful lump on the back of her head and I noted what appeared to be swollen glands around her neck. I was becoming increasingly concerned but kept putting this reaction down to the surgery. The thought never entered my head that we would be sitting in front of the surgeon being told that my beautiful girl had malignant melanoma.
During this time my husband had left the appointments to me, thinking all was ok. When we went home that night and I had to tell him that our 14 year old daughter had cancer, it was as if I had punched him in the stomach, he double over in shock of what I had said. All he could think of was that we had heard this news on our own and he should have been there. We now had to wait for appointments to come for our daughter to see the specialists.
Our lovely daughter was in shock and trying to be brave, she couldn't face school at the time so I had to go to the school and tell her teacher who broke down in tears.
As the youngest daughter of a large family and my daughter being the youngest grandchild, it was an extremely emotional time. My eldest daughter went into what I can only describe as complete denial.
