Hello everybody, I'm here because my grandson got leukemia 3 years ago at the age of 4 and we were lucky, but it took 3 years to find out it was more than luck! So I thought I'd share it a short story with you. From day one I heard that our Dexter became a nearly perfect patient. He started to handle the trauma, the procedures and the endless hospital visits with a stalwartness that surprised us all.
This culminated last year in him recieving a Wellchild Award for his bravery. The family was chuffed. Dexter loved the ceremony, danced with Pixi Lot(spelling?) and even suggested to Prince Harry that a full size balloon man would be good up in the dining room. Harry told him to tell the staff that he 'the prince' thought it was a good idea. And Dexter successfully used the 'Royal Card' as Harry called it to get his balloon man. The story gets longer and longer even including a private telephone call between Dex's mum and Meghan after the media coverage about her situation, but I will cut to the chase.
On Dex's seventh birthday his aunty, my 19 year old daughter, drew him a SuperDex poster. He in superhero pose with plates of his favourite sushi food around him. Also on this day I, as the wise old granddad (I'm 72, didn't find out how to make babies till rather late in life even though I practiced a lot; must have been doing soemthing wrong) took him to one side suggested to him that he/we ought to give something back as he had been so lucky with handling his cancer. Lucky didn't register with him! "Hey Dex, do you mind having cancer?" "Not at all, you get given lots of great stuff!".
The next day the penny dropped and Dexs Heroes was born! Let's give kids their own superhero posters to help them battle their cancers; I charged ahead with the idea and the website. Now is coming the bit this whole story is about. Dex's mum wrote me a 'letter to mums' to put on the site, dexsheroes.com . I, her dad, knew nothing about the content of the letter.
The letter was a bombshell, most of Dex's attitude wasn't to do with luck but because... well read the letter on the site. My words won't do it justice and you will get the point.
There is so much more to the shortened story on this page but it's possibly for another time. To end I am still working on dexsheroes.com and hope to launch it by Xmas. I hope it inspires some, others may know children who it can help and if anybody wants to help please get in contact.
Also, whoever is adjudicating(?) these posts may be interested in contacting Dex's mum who started a not for profit website to help alleviate isolation for mums mummysocial.com; 100,000 mums in 5 years. Those mums could quite easily be interested in supporting Macmillans, we are all part of this big human family.
Thank you for reading and apologies if I went on a bit too long!!!
Be strong, Guy B
Hi and welcome to the online community
Of course you're not a fraud for joining this community! I'm very pleased to hear that your grandson has come through his treatment for leukaemia. It must have been a very tough time for the whole family.
As the community is divided up into groups I thought you might like to join the family and friends group where you can give and receive support from others who have, or have had, a member of their family with cancer.
To join just click on the link I've created and then choose 'click to join' or 'join' (depending on the device you're using) on the page that opens. You can then introduce yourself and post questions and join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'.
When you have a minute, it would be really useful if you could pop something about your grandson's journey so far into your profile as it really helps others when answering or looking for someone with a similar diagnosis. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
