Heartbreak of losing a child to cancer is devastating. We had to help other families who are suffering too
Ibrox hero’s push to support parents
Former Rangers hero Gary Stevens has spoken for the first time of his four-year-old son’s death from a rare form of leukaemia.
Jack bravely battled the aggressive blood cancer for 18 months before passing away in November after a desperate race to find a stem cell donor failed, leaving the Ibrox legend and wife Louise devastated.
The couple’s hel l began weeks before Jack’s third birthday when he was diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia ( JMML).
Stevens, 59, said: “Jack had chronic tonsillitis, a skin infection, chilblains at one point.
“Two weeks out of hospital for tonsillitis, my wife looked at him and thought, ‘ I don’t like this, I’m taking him to the emergency department’.
“They sat me down and one of the doctors shook my hand. It was the first time I’d had my hand shaken for four months because of Covid.
“I thought, ‘Oh Jesus’. It was a moment of doom. They said, ‘We’re sorry but Jack has leukaemia’.”
Jack underwent chemotherapy at Perth Children’s Hospital in Australia, where Stevens now lives, and it was discovered older brother Oliver was a match for a stem cell transplant.
“We went through the process of getting his donation from Oliver and, for 10 months, Jack did really well,” Stevens said.
“You get to that year post-transplant and thoughts of relapse start to drop markedly.
“Unfortunately, results on his regular blood tests went a bit awry. He was taken back in.
“They won’t take a second transplant from the first donor. It doesn’t work. They looked at the worldwide donor registry, you have these hopes that something turns up. But we didn’t get a hit. There were no other options, we had to take him home, make him comfortable.
“He got sick one weekend and that was it. He was dead within two weeks. Peaceful, at home, with us, brothers, grandparents.”
Stevens and Louise have launched a charity called Forever Four in the hope of helping sufferers and families.
Louise calls their fund-raising “the light from our darkness”. They have gained support from UK sports stars on tours of Western Australia, where
Stevens has worked in physiotherapy since 2011.
Ex-Rangers boss Steven Gerrard, Leeds United captain and Scotland star Liam Cooper and England’s rugby squad have publicised the cause.
Stevens wants more financial support for bereaved families of child cancer victims.
He added: “You become a group member of the oncology ward in the hospital.
“After that, you’re a member of the bereaved family group – and that gets bigger every month. We get together, cry into each other’s beer, compare stories of how your journey ended.
“Because that’s what we share. That last, terrible little bit you can talk about together because you can’t talk about that to anyone else.
“When your child dies, you don’t just go back to work. Financially, you struggle. When Jack was first diagnosed, my wife gave up working. When Jack relapsed, I stopped. We knew his time was limited. I went back in January but I’m still on fairly light hours. I needed time to support Louise and the kids. We realised it would be nice to help families back to a more ‘normal’ life with extra f inance beyond what charities manage.”
Stevens wants the government to radically improve a stem cell donation system that’s way behind the UK.
Everton helped organise a walk-up clinic outside Goodison before a game last October. Fans gave cheek swabs to register on the national donor list.
Stevens said: “With the cheek swabs, it’s easy. I’m happy to sit outside a rugby club on a Sunday, hand out the swab kits to get folk registered.”
www.foreverfour.com.au