A FERMANAGH mother has spoken of her “devastation” after her 24 year old son was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer, the third time her family has been hit by the disease in 18 months.
Pam Gunn from Florencecourt is now spending her days and nights at Belfast City Hospital where she prays with her son Grant as he battles acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a rare type of cancer affecting approximately 400 adults a year in the United Kingdom.
“If I could take his cancer I would,” she told The Impartial Reporter.
“Now any spare moment I get I am praying. We are praying together. I am talking to God, I am asking him, I am telling him to make my child better,” she said.
Both she and her husband Joe were diagnosed with cancer within 11 months of one another and “defied the odds” by beating the illness last year. Now their son who suffers from asperger syndrome must face that same challenge after making the discovery last month. 
“Grant complained about a lump that he found under his arm. He was getting paler and paler and then within days the lump got bigger,” she explained.
He was taken to South West Acute Hospital before being transferred to Belfast City Hospital where he received a platelet transfusion and two blood transfusions. 
The next day he was diagnosed with the disease, a cancer of the white blood cells, and was told he faces up to four months in hospital and a gruelling regime of chemotherapy for the next year and a half. 
“You could have knocked me over with a feather, it was just mind blowing. I couldn’t even look at a prayer for the first three or four days. I became so angry. I thought, ‘why us again?’ Why another one? Why a third one? 
“I do get angry at the man above, I seriously do. I pray that everything goes well, that the cancer is cured, that we are all back together again,” she said.
The cruel reality has been too much for Mrs. Gunn over the last number of weeks.
“I have broken down, I have cried my eyes out. Grant was the one consoling me, telling me ‘Mummy, you’ll be fine. You got through it, Daddy got through it, I am going to get through it. I am going to be a cancer survivor too’. 
Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is an overproduction of immature lymphocytes and while it is a rare disease it is curable.
“The chemo treatment is gruelling,” said Mrs. Gunn. “He gets it through IV injections [through the blood], tablets and he gets it through his spine. It’s a rare cancer but thankfully it is curable.”
Next year Grant will need a bone marrow transplant and as he has two brothers (Graham and Dale) and two sisters (Kim and Hayley) the family are hoping that one of them will be a match. 
“If that doesn’t happen he will still get a transplant, but it will be in Dublin or London,” she said.
Alongside the latest blow to the family is the fact that her husband who suffered pancreatic cancer has had to stop his chemotherapy which he was receiving as a precautionary measure. 
“Joe is not well. The side effects of the treatment were too great and out of 18 sessions of chemotherapy he only had six sessions and ended up with kidney and heart failure,” she said.
Mrs. Gunn said she does not know what the future holds but says she is thankful for the support she has received from the community as she tries to keep strong for her entire family.
“Without doubt this is one of the most difficult moments of our lives,” she said.