Cheeky nine-year-old Jack McGrath from Kent was just four when he was diagnosed with leukaemia.

Without treatment, he was given just eight weeks to live.

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   Jack McGrath

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   The McGrath family

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   Fighter Jack McGrath

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Read his heart-breaking story and why his whole family support research into cancer ...

by Julia Rogers

EIGHT weeks to live – the haunting words froze Amy Harrison and Kevin McGrath to the spot.

Without treatment, their usually hyperactive four-year-old son Jack would not live to see his fifth birthday.

It was just four days after Christmas 2003 and it felt like he had been delivered a death sentence.

Amy, 33, remembers: "Jack was usually always on the go, into everything, but everything changed before Christmas.

"We put it down to starting school, being exhausted with Christmas parties and the overall excitement. Little did we know."

On Christmas Day, while his nine-month-old sister Daisy crawled around the floor, playing with her cousins who were frantically opening sacks full of presents from Santa, Jack showed no interest in Mr Stretch the helicopter or the big yellow crane.

Two days later, with tell-tale bruises all over his legs and dark rings around his eyes warning bells started to sound for grandmother Lesley.

Amy said: "My mum is a nurse and midwife. Kevin and I said we would take him to the doctor on the Monday, but my mum said she would just ring the emergency doctor to run it past them.

"She thought she was whispering in the hall but we heard her tell the doctor that he had symptoms that looked like leukaemia."

The next day, Amy and Kevin, of Northdown Road, Cliftonville, insisted Jack had a blood test. At 10.30am, Amy's dad called her at work to say the doctor had phoned. Jack needed to get to Thanet hospital, straight away.

Amy said: "When we arrived the doctors were waiting for us at the door.

"Then we were told the blood tests showed it was highly likely Jack had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. It needed to be verified by a lumbar puncture at a London hospital.

"Jack and Daisy were playing, mum was crying, dad was crying, Kevin was crying. I just remember asking questions."

With blue lights flashing, Jack and his family were rushed to the Royal London Hospital where a bone marrow aspiration confirmed the worst.

Kevin, 39, said: "Ninety-six per cent of his body was overrun with leukaemia. If you could have taken it out, it would have been the size of a football."

Amy, a learning support assistant at St Anthony's School in Cliftonvillle, said: "We wrote down everything from side effects of the drugs, the fact he could be wheelchair-bound, the effects of the steroids, the success rates, to the likelihood of a relapse. All of it.

"Then we asked how long he would have had if we hadn't taken him to the doctors, to which came a moment we will never forget.

"The doctors said he could easily be in a coma and would have had just eight weeks to live."

Doctors wanted consent for Jack to trial a new cocktail of chemotherapy drugs called, UKALL. He would have to take it every day for three years.

Amy said: "We said 'yes, yes, yes, go ahead, start it now, don't wait'. We were in the room for about 45 minutes, when a nurse came in and said Jack wanted his mummy and daddy."

Next came the agonising moment of telling Jack he was a "poorly boy" and would need a lot of medicine to make him better. Amy said: "Our lives changed totally from that day. Normality had gone. Our fight had only just begun."

For the next three-and-a-half years Jack had nine different types of chemotherapy, 11 bone marrow tests, was sedated 24 times, had at least five blood transfusions and was confined to a wheelchair.

He underwent an operation to have a portacath fitted under his skin, which delivered medicine straight to his heart to be pumped quickly around his body.

Amy said: "At first he had to take oral tablets when he was in hospital and he absolutely hated them. They smelt like fish and it took six of us to pin him down to get him to take them. It was heartbreaking and he told us he hated us but we had no choice.

"We spent three weeks in hospital in London with my dad bringing Daisy to visit by train so Kevin could keep working to pay the bills.

"Doctors warned us Jack's hair would fall out and one day in February we saw him scratching his head.

"I started to comb his blonde curly hair. Big clumps were coming out. I said 'let's shave the last bits off, then we'll show daddy'. Kev shaved his head too. I think that made it easier."

Amy and Kevin's lives became a robotic routine. Kevin, a self employed UPVC conservatory fitter was at work during the day, while Amy and Jack were together 24 hours a day and Daisy had a second home at her grandparents.

Amy said: "I spent my day emptying sick bowls and putting the washing machine on.

"Then every evening we would lay out the syringes full of medicine and he would squeeze them one by one into his mouth. It got to the point Daisy would only take Calpol through a syringe.

"Jack's weight fluctuated from being really skinny to seven or eight stone and when he saw himself in the mirror he hated it.

"He got really sick on the chemo. His moods would fluctuate with the steroids from being angry or sad to emotional or stroppy.

"He would sit in his wheelchair and say he wished he was a bird so he could fly away. He wanted to 'get rid of this thing'. He missed more than six months of his first school year, and would say he wanted to be "normal" like other children, but he just didn't have the energy.

"Then some days, when the doctors took his blood and said he should be really sick, he'd be playing on the trampoline."

On his fifth birthday, a day they thought he might never see, Amy and Kevin organised a face painter.

Amy continued: "Jack had no hair and what did he decide to be? A skeleton! Typical. He had a pale enough face anyway."

Life was a roller coaster of emotions and hospital trips, and twice the family faced the agony of losing Jack when he developed pneumonia.

But throughout it all Jack retained his sense of humour.

Amy remembers: "One day I remember he had been hallucinating and having double vision. The specialist asked him if he was still seeing double. He said 'no'. Then he asked how many of him he could see. Jack said 'two'. The doctor in front of him and the one in the mirror. So, you ARE seeing double. 'No', he said, 'I can see you in front of me and in the mirror'."

In the three years, Jack lost his hair twice, his nails fell out and the skin on the bottom of his feet came off, but the day after Daisy's fifth birthday last year, Jack's chemo finished. It was a huge relief to find he was finally in remission. – the treatment had worked.

Jack, who is now a cheeky nine-year-old at Palm Bay School, dreams one day, much to his parents' horror, of being a stuntman.

He loves riding his bike, going swimming, and surfing with his dad. Although he still doesn't have the energy of his peers, he certainly has their determination.

Amy said: "They can never say it's gone. But he's got a good chance now. I don't think we'll ever get through a day questioning, 'is it back?' but we need to be vigilant.

"The treatment has affected him, his memory is quite bad, his teeth have eroded from the treatment, he still has nightmares and he may never be able to have children, but he's here.

"He's also been referred to Orthopedic doctors because of problems and pains in his legs. He wanted to run the cross country at school last month. Kevin and I said, no because we know how tired he gets.

"But he just wants to be "a normal boy" so, in the end, we gave in. He ran half way round and collapsed. Kevin tried to carry him off the pitch but he was so desperate to get a medal at the end like all his friends, so they walked it together. Then he wanted to know if we were proud of him.

"I said of course we were, we couldn't be more proud of our little man."

Jack's cancer has affected all the family – and in the past five years they have raised more than £7,000 for cancer charities and have now pledged their support for the Kent Cancer Trust.

Amy added: "Raising money for research is so important – it's this that saved Jack's life. If he had been diagnosed a month before and this treatment wasn't available, I just don't know if he would have been here.

"I used to give to cancer charities , but didn't give it much thought when I dropped the money in the box. Now I have set up direct debts that go out each month.

"I would like to think that if it happened to me, the best medicine would be available to give me the best possible chance.

"So I'd say to readers, 'why leave it until it happens to you to help?'"

Grandmother Lesley summed up why raising money for research into cancer was so important.

She said: "This is what research has done, given a child that didn't stand a chance, a life and a future.

"Giving money you are not just supporting a charity, you are saving lives."

For more details about the Kent Cancer Trust and how you can get involved visit http://www.kentcancertrust.org.uk