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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Declan was born on 14 June 2008 at 10 am. Mommy had a 21 hour labour and since he didn’t seem to want to face the world he was brought into it with the aid of forceps.

He was a beautiful little boy as all parents would say, with white blonde hair and we briefly considered calling him Billy Idol Du Toit. He scored 9 out of 10 on apgar and then 10 out of 10 at 5 minutes, so all in all a healthy bouncing baby boy.

His right eye was however swollen closed and he had a small bruise underneath it which the doctors told us was from the use of forceps. We were told the bruise would subside in 7 – 10 days. We came home all ready to start life as our new little family and besides some lack of sleep, Mommy and Daddy decided that this whole parenting thing didn’t seem that tough.

A week later though, the bruise had grown so when we went to our first clinic weigh-in, we asked the Sister whether this was normal. She wasn’t very happy with it and sent us off to our Pediatrician who was also not very happy and checked us in to Flora Clinic. His view was that the bruise had turned a bit septic and had formed an abscess. The eye specialist came to see him on Monday to perform an aspiration, where they inject a needle into the bruise and suck out the abscess. She was a bit taken aback when she did the procedure as there was no fluid, but not to worry because it was probably blood that had hardened and the forceps had probably a broken a vein that was bleeding. She did in passing mention it could also be a tumor which took us aback, but we didn’t believe it could be anything that bad.

On Tuesday they sent Dec off for x-rays and on Wednesday our world fell apart. Declan was only 9 days old and the eye specialist requested a CAT scan so that she could go in and remove the “blood” but after removing some of the mass and looking at it under a microscope she told us there were abnormal cells. This still didn’t mean that much until at 8 pm that evening we were called off to a private room to be given the news by our Pediatrician. Declan had cancer. He had a malignant tumor which appeared to be growing from the back of his eye.

We fell apart. I don’t think anything can prepare you for news like this. A tiny little 9 day old baby is not supposed to get a disease which we always believed was reserved for adults like us who didn’t take that great care of their bodies. We didn’t know what all of this meant and believed that we were going to lose him, but with the help of friends, family and the Doctors at the Pediatric Oncology unit at Joburg Gen, we know that this is a fight we can win and that he will recover.

Through this website, we will keep all of you that we know are praying for us and Declan updated on his progress. He is a little fighter and a miracle baby and we know that with a bit of time and love and the treatment he is receiving it won’t be long before he is healthy again and you can all meet the little man in person.

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