A nine-year-old girl who was diagnosed with a deadly illness aged just ten months had to battle through gruelling treatment – but now she is healthy.
Sam Price, 60, kept a daily journal detailing his granddaughter Sorrelle Turnbull’s journey through leukaemia and day-to-day experiences on the wards of the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. It began as a way of keeping the family up to date with her progress and also served as a recording and reference tool.
But Sam says the diary ended up morphing into 67,000 words – and now represents a comprehensive account of the realities of a child’s path through cancer in all its highs and lows. He’s now transformed it into a book – titled ‘Small Boat in a Big Ocean’ – and hopes to secure a publisher.
Sorrelle, from Walshaw, Bury, was 10 months old when she was diagnosed with Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. She had chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant at the hospital. The youngster also developed a virus in March, 2016, and underwent pioneering antibiotic therapy.
But in the April of that year, the family were given the news they’d been desperate to hear – the transplant had been a success and Sorrelle was cancer free.
