“Any parent will tell you they would much rather it was them, but the fact is it isn’t. So you sit there and you watch your child, their little face and the tubes in their arms, and you try to be as strong as you can possibly be for them.”
A short while after her diagnosis, Aisha went for an operation to remove the lump plus some lymph nodes – small, oval-shaped organs that contain immune cells to attack and kill foreign invaders, such as viruses. This was then followed by six sessions of chemotherapy every three weeks and six weeks of radiotherapy.
As the pair were living under the same roof at the time of treatment, Rita was able to go with her eldest daughter, keeping a careful watch on the state of her health.
“I was glad of that,” Rita continued. “Although I did say to her [Aisha] ‘you have to tell me how you feel. You’ve got to tell me if you want me to be here or not here or to give you some space because I don’t know.’
