DYING

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. Brad Flahive reports.

THROUGH the muffled weeping of her 9-year-old son, Daphne Collins’ heart sinkswhen 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 Davin 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 home ladenwith mould and only one bedroom. ‘‘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 mucussecreting 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