CHILDREN
In the UK, 1 in every 500 children under 15 years of age develops a cancer. This means that approximately 1700 children (up to the age of 15) in the UK are diagnosed with cancer each year. These cancers are quite different from cancers affecting adults in that they tend to occur in different parts of the body to adult cancers. They also look different under the microscope and respond differently to treatment.
When a child is diagnosed with cancer, this obviously has a big effect on the whole family. A child may be very frightened as well as having symptoms of the cancer or side effects of treatment to cope with. They may become very clingy, argumentative and difficult. Maintaining normal discipline is difficult and a child’s whole routine is likely to change, with stays in hospital and going to hospital for appointments. Treatment may consist of surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or all three and make them feel very unwell. Chemotheraphy can last for three years and may cause changes in their appearance, such as weight loss or their hair falling out.
Children with cancer often have gaps in their education. This can be due to going into hospital; side effects from treatment; or generally not feeling well enough to fully take part in daily school life.
Radiotherapy can have important effects on growth and development. It may affect growing bones. If radiotherapy is given to the spine, a child may not grow quite as tall as expected. If radiotherapy is given to a leg, then that leg may be shorter than the other. Radiotherapy to the brain may affect the production of growth hormone by the pituitary gland.
TEENAGERS
At a time when they are on the verge of adulthood, and with enough understanding to realise the severity of the situation, the diagnosis of a possibly fatal illness is particularly devastating.
There are cruel, physically and mentally debilitating regimes of treatment to be faced, often including hair loss and sometimes amputation of limbs. A young person’s peers may feel discomfort and shy away, leaving a void in the area of most needed support, and having adverse effects on self-esteem.
School work and social life become badly affected and cancer has no respect for plans made to brighten the young patient’s life. Complications are frequent, and all such things can only be tentatively arranged and are often blighted at the last minute.
Adolescence is recognised as a difficult time for the individual and for parents and teachers alike, yet it is during this time that they have to cope with the harsh treatments and the illness’s complete disregard for age, dreams or ambition. They also have to live with the knowledge that their friends are set to go forward into that inviting adult life which they may well be robbed of. This is a time when facing death is the cruellest of ideas
