Camp gives time out for sick kids

Dylan Rossiter-Popp, 8, has been in remission for six years after being diagnosed with having acute lymphoblastic leukemia when he was 2. Photo / George Novak

Dylan Rossiter-Popp does not remember his three-year ordeal with chemotherapy but he knows he will never take up smoking.

"I am not going to smoke, I've already had cancer," the 8-year-old told the Bay of Plenty Times.

The shy boy with a cheeky smile was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2009.

The next three years of his life would involve countless visits to hospital for chemotherapy treatments.

But a few days each year out with Camp Quality meant everything to the sick little boy.

Mother Coral Rossiter said her son Dylan fell over when he was 2 but was not able to get up again.

"He's not getting up, he's not walking. We got three lots of x-rays and it swapped to his other foot."

Blood tests confirmed her son had blood cancer.

"I was sitting there and staring at him and he seemed so little. A little, tiny person on the bed. At that point I thought that was it. You have relatives who have cancer and they just die. It was awful."

Dylan's chemotherapy treatment started on June 19, 2009.

"When we were diagnosed there were eight children who were diagnosed at the same time and he's the only one which is still here. It's quite scary."

After a bone marrow aspirate, where doctors remove a piece of bone to see how much cancer was there, it showed 98 per cent of his bone marrow had cancer, she said.

However, the young boy pulled through and celebrated his sixth year in remission on June 30 this year.

The camps had been hugely beneficial for Dylan, she said.

"It's a camp which is specially designed for kid which have cancer.

"So they get to be in a group where they get cared for and each person has a companion which takes care of them," she said.

"He's more social. At times when his immune system has been shot, he can still go to camp because they know all about that kind of stuff. When they are in treatment there are a lot of things they can't do ...

"So they get to have this really amazing time with these amazing people."

Dylan will be able to keep going to camps until he is 16 and when he turns 18, he wants to go back to the camps and be a companion for other sick children, she said.