Amazing Grace beats the odds
YOUNGSTER LOOKING FORWARD TO STARTING AT NEW SCHOOL
THIS is the beaming face of a little girl who has fought a gruelling disease and come out smiling on the other side.
Like most 11-year-olds, Grace Roberts is enjoying her summer holidays and looking forward to starting secondary school.
But for Grace, the holiday is extra special, as it marks her freedom from the rare bone cancer which has turned her life upside down over the last year.
“Amazing Grace”, as her family call her, battled her way through 14 rounds of chemotherapy – even travelling to America to undergo proton beam therapy over Christmas – after she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in August last year.
And now, Grace has officially been declared cancer-free.
Doctors at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary will still keep a close eye on the Ashington schoolgirl, though she’s now able to start putting the gruelling treatment behind her.
Delighted mum Emma Fergus said: “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. We saw her consultant and he said, ‘right, congratulations, the disease is gone,’ and Grace just took it in her stride. She was acting really cool.
“It’s incredible how she’s coped with this for the last 11 months.
“We’re just so relieved that she’s come through 14 rounds of chemo, she’s found it really tough but we’ve all stayed really positive through it.
“We’ve laughed together, and tried to make the whole process easier for her to accept.”
Emma says the day doctors told her the pain in her daughter’s back was due to cancer feels like it was “yesterday” but also “a lifetime ago”.
“It becomes part of your life,” she said.
“But Grace is so happy. We’ve always said we’ve got to smile through it, and that’s what she’s done.
“She gets her strength from me and I get my strength from her.
“She’s just been so funny throughout it. Everyone says ‘be positive’ but I honestly think it makes a difference.
“When I first found out, my whole world crumbled. But the strength and the will to get through just comes up from somewhere. When I’m in front of her, something takes over, and I can be strong.
“The staff in the RVI were amazing too, they really helped, they made her feel like she wasn’t in hospital.”
Though the end of treatment doesn’t come without some anxiety from Grace, she’s excited about starting school at Ashington Academy in September.
Grace lost her hair as a result of her chemotherapy, but when her mum offered to buy a wig for her to wear when she meets her new classmates, the gutsy youngster wasn’t interested.
“I’m bald and I’m proud,” she told Emma. “It shows who I am and what I’ve gone through.”