GEMMA AND MATTHEW

MATTHEW MULLINS 

Matthew was born on February 25th, 1986 in Southend, he was a lovely boy but due to him being diagnosed in January 1990 never saw him live a normal life due to him having to receive treatment from the age of 3. Matthew was diagnosed with A.L.L (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia). Matthew was transfered from Southend Hospital to London's St.Barts hospital. Never to be put off he had a bubbly and positive personailty throughout his life.

Matthew's parents Alicia & Phil uprooted (like Julie & Duncan, Gemma's parents) where their lives were split from 'home' and 'hospital'.

Like Julie & Duncan, a special thank you must go to our employers Southend Hospital & Sainsburys, where Alicia was a nurse and Phil was a manager. Full support was given to the family, and our special friends who cared for Matthew's sister Rita.

Matthew treatment was over 2 years, and was thought to be in remission at this stage.
Matthew's consultant was Dr Judith Kingston (a modern day Florence Nightingale, who seemed to be on the ward 24 hours a day) but she was not happy with Matthew's condition. So it proved to be that 4 more months of treatment followed, Matthew then seemed to improve and allowed the family to plan holidays in the future.

However, in November 1993, he relapsed and the leukaemia disease returned once again. The following year saw him fitted with a 'hickman line' which involves 2 lines going into the heart, one line to put the drugs and blood into, the other to take bloods from.

Matthew was doing fairly well until January 1997 when the signs showed something not right, tiredness, easy to bruise and dark under the eyes. Once again Dr. Kingston's expertise was brought into action, and once again he was able to get back into remission.

Even through his ordeal, in 1996 he was able to take lessons in his first holy communion, and whilst in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hackney, Father Tom gave Matthew his First holy communion.

1996 also saw Matthew start high school at St.Thomas Moore which was a real positive to everybody connected to the family. But in the same year we were told that Matthew would need a bone marrow transplant so we had to start to find out more about The Anthony Nolan Trust.

In 1997 we lost another child from the ward, this time being Julie Duncan & Dean's Gemma. Even though we were not family it felt as though it was as all the parents would lift each other in the ward, in the house where we stayed or in the grounds. For us this was probably the 3rd child we have known to have passed away.

In 1998, Matthew, Alicia and myself moved to Bristol to find out who would be the 'donor'. This was due to the fact that none of Matthew's family was a perfect match.

Rita stayed at home cared by friends and neighbours whilst this was to be Matthew's next stage of his treatment. All we knew regarding Matthew's donor was that he was a male donor from Germany.

After the bone marrow transplant, up to January 2000, he would visit the local A&E at Southend Hospital for check ups.

January 8th saw him relapse again and we asked regarding another bone marrow transplant but the doctors informed us that Matthew's body would not be able to take it, but Dr. Kingston and her team managed to get him into remission again.

School was important to Matthew, but a special mention goes to the head master Frank Keenan (and his staff) who l suppose kept him going. The greatest accolade was given that Matthew was made an honourable prefect at St.Thomas More school.

Finally in late August/early September 2003 the symptoms returned to Matthew and his illness had returned.

Matthew lost his battle on September 15th, 2003 aged 16.

His family and friends say that 'he truly was an angel'.