Little Kevin Disas Thissera is terrified of needles.
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But the problem is the three-year-old Wagga boy has just been diagnosed with leukaemia.
“He is crying in pain, and he needs to get medication just to calm him before he gets a needle,” mother Amali said.
“He is getting angry with me because he knows the needle is coming, and it is very hard to watch.”
The Thissera family’s world has been turned upside down after Kevin was diagnosed with the blood disease last month.
The family have had to relocate to Sydney for the next eight months at least so Kevin can get life-saving treatment at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick.
Kevin’s six-year-old sister was taken out of Sturt Public School and put into the hospital school so the family can stay together.
It’s a frightening time for all yet, remarkably, the family and the Buddhist community are calling leukaemia a “friend.”
With Kevin crying in the background after another round of treatment at the hospital, mother Amali said she has been trying to find a way to reconcile her son’s pain in her heart just to manage.
“It’s a new way of thinking about this,” she said.
Peir Woon, who helps run the Potowa Buddhist Community in Wagga, has a son in the same year as Kevin’s sister at Sturt Public School.
“I asked myself if this is my son, how am I going to face these?” Ms Woon said.
“I’m learning to take leukaemia as a new friend of my son and teach myself, my son and my family all about this new friend.
“Like any other friends, we’ll learn how to accept this friend as is, laugh and cry together with him. After all, one day, this friend will go its own way and leave the family.”
Calling this insidious disease a ‘friend’ could be seen as shocking, however, Ms Woon said the Buddhist way is not to fight, but rather work with the illness to help the family.
She has set up a PayPal funding page, saying right now, the family desperately needs financial help.
“All money raised with go to Kevin’s family,” Ms Woon said.
You can help Kevin by clicking on the PayPal funding page here: Help little Kevin Thissera.