Noah's Story

For children receiving treatment and care for life-threatening illnesses, there’s no place like home.

As a nurse, Jamie has been trained to recognise the warning signs when someone isn’t well. When her two-year-old son Noah developed a limp, she knew something wasn’t right.

An x-ray in November 2019 found a large tumour on Noah’s knee. He was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells and commonly arises in and around the adrenal glands.

Jamie, who had just found out she was pregnant with her fourth child, says the news came as a devastating blow at a difficult time.

“When you hear the word cancer being used to talk about your child, it’s pretty scary. It was a bit of a rollercoaster. I was numb because I didn’t know what to expect.”

Noah’s diagnosis marked the beginning of a long, three-year treatment journey that involved numerous rounds of blood tests, chemotherapy, and radiation as well as stem cell transplants.

For Noah and Jamie, it also meant a lot of visits and time spent at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, a four-hour drive from their home in Orange. Jamie says the time away took a heavy toll on her family.

“Over the last three years, we’ve roughly had six months at home. Noah has spent a lot of time apart from his big brother and sister, which has affected his mental and social health as well as theirs.

“We also had to pull him out of pre-school and day care, and he’s missed out on swimming and other activities his friends get to enjoy.”

Virtual care is helping change all that though, and over the last six months has allowed Noah to spend more time at home surrounded by the people he loves.

Following the overwhelming success of virtualKIDS, an innovative program implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network has been able to expand virtual care to more than 80 departments, including oncology and neurology, helping patients like Noah to connect with their medical support teams via their phone, laptop or tablet.

Supported by SCHF, this model of care has helped to reduce travel time and keep kids closer to home, where they belong.

In 2021-22, 38,500 patients like Noah received virtual care. These services saved families like his 12.8 million kilometres in travel to receive treatment. That’s the equivalent to 374 return flights from Sydney to London.

Jamie says the service has been life-changing for Noah and her family.

“Emotionally, being able to be around people who love and care for you instead of being isolated all the time makes it so much better.

“It’s given us back a sense of normalcy and a routine. We actually get to spend time at home and sleep in our own beds.

“Noah gets to go to school. He can go outside and play with his toys. He can do what he wants, when he wants. He’s much more relaxed, and he’s grown up a bit more, too.

“Not having to drive back and forth to Sydney all the time has also helped us a lot financially.”

In partnership with Curing Homesickness, Coles stores across NSW are raising money in support of Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation to help get kids like Noah home from hospital sooner through their $2 Coles Card Campaign. 50c from every purchase of selected items from Coles Mum’s Sauce product range also goes towards funding vital programs like virtualKIDS.

By shopping at Coles, you can help give more young patients like Noah more time at home with the people they love – doing the things they enjoy.