By Eulalee Thompson, Staff Reporter 
Five-year-old Leah Weller, diagnosed with leukaemia more than a year ago, exploring her artistic side. - Photos By Peter Weller
Caring for children with leukaemia is not only complicated but drains the family's emotional and financial stores.
THERE REALLY were no clear warning signs for the Wellers; except for a few painful episodes about a month before Leah's their daughter fourth birthday. Initially, a battery of diagnostic tests came up empty but around the time of the child's birthday, the diagnosis was confirmed - she had developed childhood leukaemia, cancer of the white blood cells which compromises the immune system's effectiveness. The family's texture and focus changed.
"I was totally traumatised. It was the saddest day of my life. We have a son, Zachary, three-and-a-half years older than Leah and this has really matured him," said Leah's mother, Louise Fletcher-Weller, a busy Kingston engineer. The children's father, Dr. Peter Weller, well-known clinical psychologist, was equally deeply affected by the news.
"It was devastating...I felt kind of shocked and numbed but at the same time I knew that we had to do something," he said.
And they did do something. The family's energy was channelled in gathering the funds so that they could travel to Atlanta, U.S. to start the battle to save their child's life.
"The doctors had recommended that we take her away if we could for the diagnosis and assessment because there are different types of cancer. It is a matter of matching the profile to the treatment, Dr. Weller said.
Mrs. Fletcher-Weller further explained that the "finger-printing" of the leukaemia enabled the family and doctors to know the exact kind of leukaemia which their daughter had developed. It turned out that it was a standard type of leukaemia, not a unique one, and the treatment protocol was standard and available in Jamaica.
Leah is now five years old and moving through the stages of the treatment the chemotherapy, medical tests, tablets, syrups and so on. Once treatment is rigorously adhered to, the evidence is that the survival rate for leukaemia is very good. However, besides being expensive (in excess of about $12,000 every three months), the management of leukaemia is a tedious and sometimes complicated process to follow.
"You have to watch the children like a hawk. If the child gets a temperature of 28.3 degree centigrade you have to take her to hospital because they don't have a normal immune system. Most of the times it is infections that kills the child and not the disease itself, because they don't have the white blood cells to fight the infection," Mrs. Fletcher-Weller said.
Dr. Weller also agrees that the monitoring of treatment is complicated even for parents at the higher end of the education scale. There are dosages to be calculated, medication to be given at the right time and in the right dosages, side effects of medications to be monitored and attended to immediately, regular medical tests and so on.
"It is draining, so we need lots of support, the parents and families need a lot of support. We could have chosen to keep it a secret but it helped that we enlisted the support of our friends and family," Dr. Weller said.
Their concern however, is not only for themselves but extends to other families in Jamaica who cannot afford to care for their children with leukaemia. They believe that a lot of these children are falling out of treatment regime and dying because of the lack of emotional and financial support to families.
"You see the children go into remission, but you have to keep them on the drugs. So if you have a scenario of the mother in Westmoreland for example, with six children, she might just stop bringing the child in for treatment after the remission and then the child has a relapse," Mrs. Fletcher-Weller said.
The Wellers are assisting haematologists Drs. Wharfe and Taylor at the University Hospital of the West Indies to further develop a Leukaemia CARE support group. They would like to see more general education about the disease and co-opt the assistance of the general public in raising funds to treat this very expensive disease.
