Helping families affected by cancer after son's death

A mum has been helping other families affected by cancer after her son died from a rare and aggression form of the disease.

Callum was 18 years old when he died from Ewing Sarcoma in 2022 after being diagnosed in 2018 and since then, his mum has campaigned to make more people aware that cancers can affect young people.

Joanne McNulty said: "We went down to the hospital four times because he [Callum] had a pain in his back and they kept sending them away because he was so active… that's what they put the pain down to."

The Health Department has been approached for comment.

The tumour had attached itself to Callum's spine by the time it was found, and it meant he had to go through physiotherapy to learn to walk again along with his six months of chemotherapy because of the damage caused to his spine.

McNulty believes that could have been avoided if the cancer had been found sooner.

"The actual cancer diagnosis was devastating for him but because he was such an active, sporty boy - the actual learning how to walk again appeared annoyed him more."

She added: "If they had diagnosed that earlier he probably will still have gone through chemo, but he wouldn't have dealt with the paralysis because it wouldn't have grown onto his spine, they would have been able to deal with that quicker."

McNulty said it should this should be considered more often when young people are unwell.

She said: "I don't want to frighten people… but I would like people to go rule out cancer first - why are we ruling it out last?"

McNulty added: "It's not just pain, it's feeling sick, it's the child not being themselves, losing weight, and looking back now I can see Callum was and wasn't himself."

"But again, I never thought in a million years I thought it was cancer – I thought it was a sports injury."

Callum and his family were helped by the charity CLIC Sargent Jersey during his cancer treatments.

McNulty is now an ambassador for the charity and was helped by its case worker Tess Watson.

She said: "Joanne is an incredible young lady… She has a strength that I have no idea where she gets it from."

"She's made a lot of difference because of she's able to talk to a lot more people than we would be able to talk to," Watson added.

"I think parents are more engaging with their children about what's wrong with them, so parents are more able to go forward to see their GPs and say this is a problem with my child and the GPs are listening to them."

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