Rachel lives in Queensland with her husband, Josh, sons, Nate, Jack, and Zane.

With three kids under four, life for the family was busy but fun. Rachel had her own small business and worked at home with the boys.

At the time of diagnosis, Nate looked completely fine, but something wasn’t right.

There were no symptoms but after three long weeks of knowing something was wrong, and getting no medical answers, Rachel took Nate to the doctor and asked for a blood test.

That night, Rachel received the life-changing diagnosis. In December 2020, at the age of four, Nate was diagnosed with B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

Three days later Nate started treatment. His two younger brothers were taken out of kindy so they wouldn’t bring germs home to Nate and, for the first six months, Josh stopped working. Rachel also had to stop her own small business.

“The first 30 days it was very intensive chemo. And, with COVID and the hospital going in and out of lockdown, for the first two and a half weeks I only saw Nate twice in that time.

“I was at home with my two youngest while Josh, my husband, was in the hospital with Nate.”

“I coped with that by just getting everything ready for a chemo patient to come back to your house.

“So I was getting the carpets cleaned, getting the air filter cleaned, getting water purification added onto our home taps and things like that.

“He was sharing a room with his brother, so we moved him to his own room.”

Rachel shut herself off from social interactions for 10 months and didn’t speak to anybody unless she knew that they knew Nate had cancer.

“I was so emotionally distraught for a year and a half. I made sure I didn’t put myself in a position where I was meeting new people, I just didn’t have the emotional strength to deal with their response when I had to say my child had cancer.”

Rachel had never considered herself an unpaid carer, until she learned that’s what she was.

“I definitely became an unpaid carer as soon as Nate was diagnosed, there’s just no way that I could have kept working.

“I don’t think people could ever understand it until they are going through it.

“When your four-year-old can’t walk anymore…. You can never understand the burden of that.

“It’s a physical burden. It’s an emotional burden. It’s a spiritual burden. It’s a lot to carry.”

“Nate has had so many life changes so quickly and just going through everything on a daily basis impacts everything.

“It’s put a strain on me and I’ve become hyper vigilant with things like, checking his temperature.

“Or I would be driving to somewhere new, with him in the car, and I’d be scanning street signs as I’m going past, just thinking, if he spikes a temperature and I need to call an ambulance quickly, I need to know exactly where I am so I can tell them.

“I found all my energy was going into that and managing him, so I didn’t have any real emotional strength left for other people.”

Nate finished treatment February 2023.

“He actually rang the bell at the Queensland Children’s Hospital so hard that it fell off!

“Nate is in grade two this year and Jack is in prep, and Zane is in kindy.

So, this is the first year where they’re kind of all off to school together, which is lovely.”

Kids Cancer Conversations hosted by Georgie Gardner is a podcast made in collaboration with RedKite, the podcast seeks to explore the hidden side of Childhood Cancer, the non-medical part that often gets missed on the cancer journey.

Episode seven of Kids Cancer Conversations with Georgie Gardner is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Original article written for 9Honey.