Practical support

Marcie and her family have been friends of the Trust for several years and we have been delighted to arrange a few special trips out for them, one to see X-Factor, where Marcie met some of the stars including Simon Cowell, and one to see the West End Show Wicked. Sadly, Marcie Loader died on Monday 5th October 2009 after a long brave battle with cancer.
Her father James said: “She was the bravest little girl that I’ve ever met. We will miss her so very very much forever.”  

Here is just a small part of Marcie’s story - a piece we featured in our Autumn 2007 newsletter – which details just some of her experiences.
 
Just months after she was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma (bone cancer) 12-year-old Marcie Loader was told she had a second cancer – leukaemia. Here Marcie and her mum Justine tell their story.

Marcie said: “After a weekend down at Uncle Stevie’s house near Bath, I started to get really bad pains in my right foot and shin. After a couple of trips to the doctors, I went to see my friend Doug Penn, a wonderful ‘back man’, who told my mummy there was something ‘seriously wrong’ with my back. He spoke to our doctors who agreed, and referred me to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, in Reading.

“I stayed in Reading for a few days, while they did loads of tests on me. I met some excellent people including the big rugby-playing consultant Mr Sean O’Leary. I saw him on 7th February, and he told mummy and daddy the MRI scan had showed that I had a growth, the size of a snooker ball, in my spine, at the very bottom, in the sacrum (just above the coccyx). He said the tumour was malignant which means it was a dangerous one, a cancer which will carry on growing until I go pop basically, so it needed to be stopped.”

Marcie began chemotherapy and the family became used to frequent hospital stays. But after just a few months of treatment they were told Marcie had developed leukaemia – a known but rare side effect from one of the drugs used in chemotherapy.

Marcie was referred to Bristol for a bone marrow transplant, which was followed by three weeks in isolation, during which she was not even allowed to see her younger sister Amelia, for fear of getting an infection.

Marcie said: “You weren’t really allowed to wander around; you had to stay in one room for ages. I missed my friends because they didn’t really come to see me in hospital, but they rang me a lot.”
Details of Marcie’s website and the hospital address were sent out to friends and Marcie said: “It was nice to receive things, especially after the bone marrow transplant, because we were stuck in that room.”

Justine and Marcie’s Dad, James, took it in turns to stay with her, swapping every 24 or 48 hours so there was always someone to take Amelia to school.

For Marcie among the hardest things about her illness was losing her hair.

Justine said: “She was walking down the hallway one day – a bag of bones with no hair and ears sticking out – and we said, ‘Marcie you really look like Dobby’ (the elf from Harry Potter); – she was broken hearted.”

Marcie’s hair has now grown back – but brown, not blonde as it was before – and she has developed freckles, which her family joke must have come from her bone marrow donor.

Another difficult thing Marcie said is that she finds it harder to run around now. “As much as she’d love to go off and do netball matches with everyone else it is hard work.”

“I think she finds school very stable; they are lovely people, they are supportive all the time – no one questions her,” Justine said.

Marcie hated having a Hickman line (a tube inserted under the skin through which she received treatment), which meant she could not have a bath, shower or swim for two years, so when it was removed she celebrated by throwing a party at the school pool.

Another hardship was the restricted diet during treatment, when she missed Chinese takeaway most.

Marcie is now looking forward to getting to know her baby brother, finding a new school for next year and catching up on the holidays and activities missed over the past three years.

The family has found support from friends and family invaluable and Marcie would like to thank everyone, especially her friends Henny, Poppy, Jessie and Weezy
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She added: “I am staying very well with no symptoms at all for a while – all thanks to the wonderful Dr Kate and her team, and a new drugs regime. I do still need regular blood tests at Oxford – Denise is there and she ALWAYS gets a vein, which is great! What with my cute new brother and a new school year, I’m really looking forward to the next year!”