The world of Jane and Andrew Icke fell apart the day they were told their daughter had cancer, but young Alice has made incredible progress. LYNETTE PINCHESS hears their story
YOUNG Alice Icke looks the perfect princess in her Cinderella dress for World Book Day.
But just hours later, on that day in March, normal family life fell apart when her parents Jane and Andrew were given the devastating news their little girl had cancer.
It's a word no parent wants to hear but it seemed even more incomprehensible because four-year-old Alice appeared so well.
The only clue was a bit of a pot belly, which had prompted the visit to the doctor who referred them straight to the Queen's Medical Centre that afternoon.
Jane, who had begun a new job just the day before and ended up taking four months off, says: "We went straight to the assessment centre at Queen's and were sat there quite a while and in my mind I'm thinking a hernia, a kidney infection that's caused it to swell, and at the very worst I thought she might be facing some kind of surgery.
"Other than her tummy she seemed perfectly fine. She had a cough but it was that time of year for viruses and her appetite had dropped off, but she's a fussy eater," says Jane, who is sharing her story to highlight September being CLIC Sargent's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
At 10pm the consultant told the couple to prepare themselves for the strong chance it could be cancer.
"At this point they'd examined her tummy and said there was a very slim chance it could be a cyst, but with the size and how it felt it was very likely to be kidney cancer.
"You hear that and your mind immediately goes to the worst-case scenario and your whole world falls apart," says Jane, who works for a public relations company in the city centre and lives in Ilkeston.
"Until it does happen to you, you don't think about it. As a parent it's the last thing you think you'll ever have to deal with."
A week of tests including an MRI and biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.
Kidney cancer in children is rare but Alice had a 10cm Wilms' tumour, the most common type in youngsters her age.
Jane says: "You kind of fall apart at the beginning and think of all the possibilities you don't want to think of and then once you get your head around it the best you can you go 'OK, what do we need to do to get her through it'.
"For me one of the most difficult things was she seemed so well without any severe symptoms and yet I was going to be putting her through all this horrible treatment. I remember saying several times 'but she seems alright'... it's that disbelief really."
Explaining what was happening to a four-year-old was difficult and at first the word "cancer" was avoided.
"We were telling her we were doing all this to make her better – that there was this lump in her tummy that was making her poorly.
"She was feeling OK and she wanted to go home. We had to keep reassuring her it was for the best and she needed to be here and they'd make her better," says Jane, who also has a seven-year-old son Joshua.
"We had a lovely Macmillan nurse who helped to explain things to her and we had books we could read to her and Joshua about cancer.
"We didn't use the word cancer initially – that's a difficult one – but after speaking with our Macmillan nurse we decided we would have to because you're hearing it all the time – If I'm talking to a doctor and she's there, or Andrew and I are talking about it. So we've used the word with her and Joshua and tried to explain it."
It was very much a case of taking it one day at time for the first month or two. Normal family life was put on hold and Jane likens it to being in a bubble which revolved around hospital.
The first course of treatment was six weeks of chemotherapy which made Alice's shiny blonde hair fall out in clumps.
"It was really upsetting because we were in hospital anyway and she wasn't very well, but that made it all the worse," says Jane.
"But at the time she was a bit oblivious to it. I had told her it might happen and we'd been on the ward with other children who didn't have hair, so I could say 'look, there's so and so and she's still beautiful and hasn't got any hair.'"
Chemotherapy shrunk the tumour by 90 per cent before surgery to remove it in May.
The five-hour operation, in which Alice's kidney was removed, was complicated since the tumour had spread into the vein which feeds the heart.
But just three days later Alice was able to go home after a miraculous bounce-back.
Jane recalls: "She came out of theatre groggy on morphine, the following day was pretty immobile and sleepy, the next day they took her off the morphine and she was like a different child, she just perked up that afternoon.
"It was amazing and the surgeon came and saw her and said she's running around the ward and having paracetemol for pain relief so if we were happy we could take her home.
"We were just amazed by her really and I think the doctors were a little bit too because she just bounced back so quickly."
Radiotherapy came next to eradicate any remaining cancer cells and she is having more chemotherapy until the end of November, when her parents are hoping she will be given the all-clear.
"She does have days when she's tired but she's got this amazing little spirit – she's a feisty madam who knows her own mind, but I think that kind of spirit has helped and we've tried to stay positive," Jane says.
Alice's hair is growing back and earlier this month she started at Charlotte Nursery and Infant School in Ilkeston.
Jane has nothing but praise for everyone who has played a part: the paediatric oncology staff, Macmillan, CLIC Sargent, the school and all their family and friends who have got them through the last seven months.
"There are so many children in much worse situations that your perception of it all changes. If in that first week someone had said to me at this point you'd be saying you're lucky, I'd be like, 'don't be stupid'."
There are long-term worries about the side-effects of treatment, but they're being parked for now as the family focus on the here and now.
"She's doing really well. She's a real exuberant, outgoing little girl, who's really full of life and, hopefully come the end of this treatment, it will only get better," says Jane.
"She has taken it in her stride...as much as a four-year-old can."
