International Siblings Day 2025

My husband and I have two children, Lauren who is 16 and Seth who is 11.
They are very different children with Lauren being very quiet and enjoying reading and crafting, while Seth is very chatty and enjoys computer games and learning about Greek mythology. Despite this, and the five year age gap between them, they have always been close and we have spent many happy hours as a family playing board games, watching films or going for walks which are some of our favourite things to do.

In June 2023, our whole world turned upside down when Lauren was unfortunately diagnosed with leukaemia following a very short period of feeling unwell and bruising abnormally easily. She was urgently admitted to Alder Hey where she spent the next two weeks starting chemotherapy and undergoing further tests.

When we took her home after this initial phase we were hoping that, despite the constant worry of her diagnosis and the relentless nature of treatment, we would be able to have a tiny bit of normality for our family. Unfortunately this was not to be, as just two days later Lauren was admitted to our local hospital with a high temperature, and hours later transferred to Alder Hey suffering from sepsis and necrotising fasciitis — an infection that kills soft tissue on the body.

At this point we were told that she was very seriously ill and needed emergency surgery to remove a significant part of the muscle from one of her legs, and that she was so ill she may not make it to the operating theatre — so they were considering operating in the intensive care unit. Walking into intensive care and seeing about thirty medical staff ready to operate on your child is something I hope no-one ever experiences.

Ultimately, they stabilised her enough to make it to a surgical theatre, but due to the nature of the infection which was ravaging her body, they needed to ensure that they had removed all the infected tissue — which meant leaving her with a large open wound. She spent a week in intensive care on a ventilator and had to go back to theatre daily to check her wound, before being moved to the Burns Unit at Alder Hey due to needing specialist nursing to deal with the frequent dressing changes required for a large open wound.

In the end, Lauren spent almost three months in Alder Hey recovering while undergoing frequent surgeries, including a big surgery after a couple of weeks to close the wound and perform reconstructive surgery. During this time, she was largely confined to a bed lying on her side and so had to learn to walk again, as a lot of her muscle had started to waste away. Lauren’s leukaemia treatment had also had to stop when she first became ill with sepsis, but by September 2023 she was well enough that doctors were able to restart treatment for her cancer and we were hopeful that things would start to settle down.

Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case and in November 2023, during the consolidation phase of her leukaemia treatment, Lauren developed agonising stomach pains. When she was admitted to hospital the doctors quickly realised that she was suffering from pancreatitis. We were again transferred to the High Dependency Unit at Alder Hey. The doctors believe that Lauren had suffered an allergic reaction to one of the chemotherapy drugs used during this phase, and that had caused a significant case of pancreatitis that ultimately required a stent fitting in Lauren’s stomach to drain the large pseudo cyst that had formed on her pancreas.

In early 2024, Lauren entered the maintenance phase of leukaemia treatment which is the last but longest. In theory, this is an easier phase as the treatment becomes largely administered at home with daily chemo tablets and has less impact on your neutrophil count, which means you have more ability to fight off infection on your own.

Once again, our experience was slightly different, as it took a while to find the right balance of chemotherapy to keep Lauren’s neutrophils in the recommended range — which meant frequent trips to hospital for blood tests. In addition to this, she developed an infection in her central line which meant surgery to remove it and then put a new one in a month later. For the past year, she has been suffering from complex PTSD related to the trauma experienced in 2023, which leads to a number of physical symptoms.

As parents, our experience of dealing with leukaemia has been one of worry and trying to advocate for Lauren with doctors.
On a practical level, I am currently not working due to the level of care that Lauren requires, while my husband continues to have to juggle work with helping with constant hospital trips. Luckily he works from home which makes things slightly easier, but having to drop everything to take Lauren to hospital when she has a temperature frequently — while ensuring that someone is able to stay home with Seth and our dog Luna — is challenging.

However, an aspect of this journey that is often overlooked is the impact on siblings.
Seth was nine when Lauren was diagnosed and whilst we were in hospital with her for the first two weeks of treatment, he had to go to stay with his grandparents. Prior to this, he had only been away from us overnight for a night at a time so the adjustment to suddenly having to stay away from us was massive.

Then, after all being together at home for two days, when Lauren went into hospital with sepsis he had to return to his grandparents, but this time with her being so sick and us needing to sit with her or talk to doctors, we weren’t able chat with him for more than about 30 minutes a day for a little while — which had a massive impact on all of us.

Eventually, Lauren was well enough for him to come and visit but seeing Lauren so ill was very shocking to Seth and it made him worry about every little thing, but also get frustrated that she wasn’t able to play with him anymore.

Trying to balance care for Lauren with trying to give Seth a sense of normality has been a challenge.
We worry about the impact the last two years has had on him, as he now has worries that no child should be thinking about — with him asking about Lauren’s temperature if she feels unwell as he knows that she will have to go to hospital if it hits a certain level.

He has also learned to check who is picking him up from school as if his grandparents pick him up unexpectedly, he knows that Lauren is back in hospital and that we are worried about her.

We haven’t been able to go away on holiday for the last two years and Seth has missed out on so much of a normal childhood. Even when we do manage to do very small things, they feel like a compromised version, but we continue to try our best on a daily basis to do what we can.

We try to prioritise him wherever possible but the sibling support from Joshua Tree over the past year has been amazing.
Lea from Joshua Tree has been visiting Seth at school regularly which gives him the chance to get stuff off his chest, as he doesn’t like talking to his school friends about what’s going on at home as he is very sensitive to the fact that it might make other people sad.

Lea gives him the chance to express himself through play and we are really thankful for the support that she has offered him during this time. Seth also had the opportunity to take part in a pilot scheme through Joshua Tree for six weeks of dance classes in school time — which was amazing, as it is something he really wanted to do but at the moment we find it hard to facilitate after school activities as we are not able to commit to be able to take him on a regular basis due to Lauren’s ongoing health challenges.

Whilst the last two years have been hard for all of us, we try to remain positive that at some point things will settle and that we will eventually be able to go on our long-hoped-for trip to Disneyland Paris as a family.

In the meantime, we are immensely thankful for charities like Joshua Tree who help to support the wellbeing of families impacted by childhood cancer, and without which everything would be a little bit harder.

Also, since it’s Siblings Day, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my brother, Matt.
We have been helped by so many family and friends since Lauren has been unwell, but Matt has been an absolute rock from day one. For almost the last two years he has text me every day without fail, even when he was abroad, to check if we are ok, or to let me moan at him or just to send me cute pictures of his cat, Lira.

Sometimes when you are going through something big, you just need someone to check in with you to make you feel a tiny bit better.

Written by, Emma Paxton