‘He’s definitely fighting. He’s just trying to understand all of this and he’s trying his best to keep going.”
Lia Weekes was trying her damndest to hold it together when telling the Richmond News how her brave, six-year-old son, Joshua, was coping with his battle against a rare and aggressive form of leukemia.
“He definitely wants to go home and wants to get back to school and his friends.”
Every day for the last three weeks, Lia, along with husband Dagan, has been glued to her son’s bedside in BC Children’s Hospital, as Joshua underwent emergency surgery and 10 consecutive, grueling days of chemotherapy.
It was only the middle of February, two days before the family was due to return from visiting relatives in the Philippines, that there were any signs at all that Joshua was sick.
He went off his food, was fighting a fever, had diahrrea and wanted to sleep all the time.
His parents, who live near No. 4 and Blundell roads, understandably put it down to a stomach bug of some kind.
“But it just seemed to get worse very quickly and by the time we got home, we took him straight to the family doctor here,” said Lia.
“Within five minutes, he said go straight to Richmond Hospital. The doctors there did blood work and told us straight away, ‘he’s too sick to be here, it’s leukemia.’
“I didn’t believe it. In my mind, he just had a stomach bug.”
Joshua was taken to BC Children’s Hospital that night.
Within 24 hours, acute myeloid leukemia was confirmed and he was rushed into surgery and started chemotherapy that night.
“He had 10 consecutive days of chemo and that seemed to help the symptoms,’ said his mom, who, as well as her husband, has planned to take the next six to eight months off work to be by Joshua’s side.
“But his hair has started to fall out and he doesn’t like that too much. He’s a bit sad and just wants to go home.
“But I tell you, he’s giving these nurses what for. (The nurses) say it’s good that he’s causing trouble; the feistier the better they say. He’s a feisty little boy, but he’s usually very polite.”
Lia said Joshua has been lifted a little by all the cards and love being sent to him by students and staff at DeBeck elementary, where he’s in Grade 1.
The big task that now lies ahead for the Weekes family is to find, in the next two months or so, a suitable bone marrow donor from Joshua’s rare ethnic background to help save the young boy’s life.
“If someone is from one of four backgrounds – Filipino, English, Icelandic or West Indian – or is a mix of them, that could be a match,” said Lia.
“They need to be age between 17 and 35 though. The more people that try, the better, obviously.”
Lia said she and Dagan are still waiting to meet with the bone marrow transplant people.
“I asked (the doctors) if we could wait longer to give the search more time, but they said it has to be in the next two to three months,” added Lia.
If Joshua’s blood count improves, his parents are hoping he can go home for a couple of days for a break, before he goes back in for two more rounds of chemo in a bid to eradicate the cancer.
“Then it will be all about the transplant and likely another two to three months in hospital,” said Lia.
Although at first reluctant to talk about the shock of the diagnosis because “it made it too real,” Lia now wants as many people as possible to know, if it helps her son in some way.
She said people can help in two ways; by giving blood or getting tested for being a bone marrow donor.
“I didn’t realize how much blood is needed to keep Joshua alive; people can help by donating, no matter their ethnicity,” she added.
You can register to donate blood or be tested for a bone marrow match by going online to Blood.ca/en/stem-cell/register-onematch.
