Tara Murray
Amelia Nesci is like most three-year-olds.
She loves playing outside and going on trips to the supermarket and is as just at home sitting on the couch with the Ipad.
The young Sunshine resident now has a fight on her hands after being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Her father Anthony Nesci said that about a month ago, Amelia become very tired and was sleeping all the time.
She didn’t want to eat or go to daycare and started to become really pale.
A sore stomach then appeared.
He and her mum, Nadia Cali, took her to the doctors, thinking she might have an infection, but tests proved otherwise.
Constipation and worms were another two diagnoses as they sought the medical opinion of numerous doctors.
After a blood nose that lasted for two hours, more tests were done and the family’s world fell apart.
Amelia has already started treatment and is set to have chemotherapy for the next 12 months.
Her cancer is the most common in children, with a good success rate of recovery.
Mr Nesci said it had been hard watching their daughter in pain.
“She knows something is going on,“ he said.
“Slowly and surely we are picking our moments to let her know what is happening. Reading her stories about kids with leukemia and kids who are losing their hair. She’s asking ’is that what is going to happen to me daddy, is that what I’ve got daddy’ my heart just breaks.“
Mr Nesci said he wanted to encourage other parents to trust their instincts when it came to their child’s health.
“That gut feel that is gnawing away in the bottom of your stomach, act on it,“ he said.
“Hindsight is a beautiful thing… There were signs there that maybe I chose to ignore, hoping it wasn’t as serious as it turned out.
“I had always thought, I’m a pretty positive person. I thought it was growing pains or something like that, or it’s just a phase.
“I think I knew deep down I knew there were a couple of things that didn’t add up for me.”
The family is calling on people to donate blood if they can, after a blood transfusion was needed to help save Amelia’s life
Ms Cali’s best friend Laura Ward set up a GoFundMe page for Amelia. Originally aiming to reach $5000, more than $46,000 has been donated so far.
Mr Nesci said they had been blown away by the support they had received.
“I’ve reached out to all those who I know and those I don’t know,” he said. “If I could hug each and everyone of those people I would. They’re absolute angels.
“The support has been phenomenal, the calls, texts, the food, some really beautiful people out there.”
To donate: www.gofundme.com/f/4h24j-help-amelia-beat-leukemia.
