Poppy Bailey’s parents thought she was just jealous of her new baby brother when she suddenly acted different and clingy.
Claire and Ross, from Lavendon, near Milton Keynes, UK, said that they wanted to give Poppy a sibling, and thought all their dreams had come true when Claire fell pregnant again.
“Poppy was so excited to become a big sister,” Claire said.
She then gave birth to a boy, Oscar, in April 2020.
“The country had just been put into the first lockdown,” Clair added. “But everything went smoothly and Oscar was perfect. The family felt complete.”
But just a few days after Baby Oscar’s arrival, Poppy started complaining of pains in her legs. She seemed tired, gradually started eating less, and became clingy and depressed.
“At first, we put it down to her having a bit of jealousy over her new brother,” Claire said. “And the world was suddenly in lockdown due to Covid. She was off school. We thought she was just going through a tough time.”
Claire contacted her GP and was given a telephone appointment due to Covid-19 restrictions.
A blood test was arranged, which confirmed that Poppy had an iron deficiency and the family hoped that the tests had explained Poppy’s mood and her not wanting to eat.
But a few days later, Claire received a phone call from their GP. He had reviewed her daughter’s blood test results in more detail and wanted to see her in person.
She was checked over at the surgery and the GP advised Poppy’s parents to take her to the hospital straight away for tests and scans, she was taken to Bedford Hospital.
A chest X-ray revealed a large tumor wrapped around Poppy’s heart and pushing against one of her lungs. Claire and her husband Ross were told straight away it was cancer.
“Our world came crashing down around us in seconds, we were unable to comprehend what was happening,” she said. “We refused to believe it at first, insisting that our little girl who’s always been the picture of health couldn’t possibly have cancer.”
That night, Claire stayed at home with baby Oscar while Poppy and her dad Ross were sent in an ambulance to Addenbrookes Hospital.
“I didn’t sleep a wink that night,” she said. “It was the worst night of my life.”
A biopsy and scans revealed cancer had spread all through Poppy’s bones and bone marrow, and she was officially diagnosed with stage 4 high-risk Neuroblastoma just weeks before her fifth birthday.
Neuroblastoma is cancer that starts in certain very early forms of nerve cells, most often found in an embryo or fetus. The term neuro refers to nerves, while blastoma refers to cancer that starts in immature or developing cells. This type of cancer occurs most often in infants and young children.
It is a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer, with around only 100 children being diagnosed in the UK each year. Symptoms include irritability, fatigue, energy loss, pale skin, loss of appetite, and bone pain.
As Neuroblastoma is often left undetected until it is in the advanced stages, around half of the children that have been diagnosed find out that cancer has spread.
Treatment began immediately, and over the course of the last year, Poppy has endured 13 rounds of chemotherapy at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, with side effects including sickness, hair loss, hearing loss, and muscle damage.
“You’re suddenly thrown into a ward – it was like something you see on Children in Need,” the mother said. “It was surreal. It felt like something that could only happen to other people. I kept telling myself, “Don’t worry, you’ll wake up soon and it will all have been a big nightmare.”
“She absolutely loves Rapunzel,” she said. “Someone donated a knitted Rapunzel wig to her ward at Addenbrookes, which has helped her deal with losing her hair.”
Poppy is still currently having treatment in the UK and while there is not yet an end time, the treatment is likely to continue for a year – meaning the family will need to fly out to the US in summer 2022.
Her parents are now in a race against time to find the money trying to raise $343,000 so they can fly to New York with Poppy so she can get the treatment she needs for stage 4 high-risk Neuroblastoma.
Claire said there are also times when Poppy’s treatment has left her radioactive, meaning she can’t be around little Oscar. This has meant that there have been times that the family has been separated for weeks at a time.
The family is now trying to create as many happy memories as possible and plans to take their princess to Disney on Ice as a surprise in the October half-term.
Claire and Ross have named their campaign, the Princess Poppy Rainbow Appeal, and are desperate to raise the amount needed to continue Poppy’s treatment.