Kiah’s Story

Kiah with her gorgeous family.

Kiah is 32 and has three beautiful kids aged 10, 8 and 18 months. Kiah was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. After being cancer free for four years, Kiah was diagnosed in July 2018 with metastatic cancer.

Kiah had just returned to work from maternity leave and her daughter was five months old at the time. “All I could think about were my children and them growing up without a mum. I knew once it had spread I had no more chances,” Kiah said.

Kiah underwent treatment which was doable with the support of her amazing family, and Mummy’s Wish. With a young baby to attend to during the night, and two other children to care for, it was just about impossible to follow the doctor’s instruction of “lots of rest”.

“I was just so, so tired. I slept when my baby daughter slept, and somehow I found the energy to do what needed to be done most days,” Kiah said.

Similar with many mums dealing with cancer, Kiah also struggled with not being able to fulfil her ‘mum duties’ as best she could.

“I struggled with feeling helpless and tired, which resulted in my being impatient with the kids,” she said.

Feeling helpless and tired is a comment Mummy’s Wish Support Coordinators hear all too often from the mums we support, said Gayle Richardson, Mummy’s Wish co-founder.

“As mums, we try to do everything for everyone. Mummy’s Wish is here to help relieve the burden of everyday life for mums undergoing cancer treatment. We are here to help and give mums the time she needs to rest, to recuperate, and most importantly, to spend quality time with her young family,” Gayle said.

After contacting Mummy’s Wish, Kiah received care pack and that extra pair of helping hands was arranged – a cleaner for 12 weeks. The care pack included: a guide for Mums with Cancer; books specially written for young children to help families talk to little ones about what’s happening with mum; plus, a Mummy’s Wish favourite, voice-recordable comfort bears for each of Kiah’s children. The bears allowed Kiah to record special messages for each of her children so they could hear mum’s voice while cuddling the bear when she wasn’t there.

“The cleaner was a huge help in doing the big household tasks like cleaning floors and bathrooms,” Kiah said.

“And the boys still sleep with their teddies with my voice recording.”

If you know a mum like Kiah that needs our help, please contact us.

For Mummy’s Wish to continue to support mums like Kiah, we rely completely on the generous support and donations of the Australian community. So far we have the resources to only help 20% of our diagnosed mums – our goal is to be able to support every mum in any state that needs our help.