‘Miracle’ for last Christmas with mum
Davin, 9, will this year spend the festive season in a healthy home, with a Christmas tree for the first time – but his mother’s illness means that joy will be bittersweet.
THROUGH the muffled weeping of her 9-year-old son, Daphne Collins’ heart sinks when she hears him whisper ‘‘Mummy, I don’t want to be alone’’.
But Daphne knows her terminal cancer diagnosis means it will happen one day soon.
It was in the quiet of night, that Daphne watched her son grieve over a future without his mum – the pair shared the only bed of their Housing NZ home in west Auckland’s New Lynn.
In October, Daphne had a ‘‘massive tumour’’ removed from her uterus and was struggling to heal in a one-bedroom home rife with mould. ‘‘Waking up at 4am with a foot on your face, or right where the wound is – it’s very difficult,’’ she said.
Daphne was diagnosed with Adenocarcinoma – a type of cancer that forms in mucus-secreting glands throughout the body – in her uterus. ‘‘I had been bleeding for three months before my gynaecologist realised what it was,’’ she said.
She tried to stay positive despite the prognosis being grave but at her latest CT scan received the news she was dreading: the cancer had returned and much faster than surgeons expected. ‘‘I felt everything at once. Anger, frustration, sadness. But then I realised I had to be strong for Davin, he’s only nine so I had to think about moving forward.’’
She decided to do everything she could to get ‘‘a miracle’’ – a new Housing NZ house. She tried every avenue, but it was approaching local MP Deborah Russell that got the job done.
Within a fortnight of getting help from Russell, she was told a new home would be hers by Christmas. ‘‘It was such exciting news.’’
Daphne was an opera singer who once performed for Prince Charles.
The family moved into the new two-bedroom, ground floor apartment a few days before December 25. It will be dressed with a Christmas tree – the only thing Davin wanted for Christmas – and presents from Housing NZ.
The new home is one of 460 new dwellings going up in the New Lynn electorate over the next three years, and is just 50 metres from Davin’s school, where he excels in art and sport.
‘‘It’s awesome,’’ said Davin of the new home. ‘‘It doesn’t have any mould and I can walk to school.’’
Daphne’s sister Janice will become Davin’s guardian.
‘‘I’m so blessed to have my sister, I don’t know what would have happened without her,’’ she said.
‘‘It was such exciting news to know we were going to be in a new home at Christmas.’’ Daphne Collins