This heartbreaking final moment between a little boy and his dying sister was shared by their father just before she lost her fight with cancer. Beside the tragic photo of six-year-old Jackson Sooter comforting his four-year-old sister Addy, their dad Matt Sooter wrote that his son was saying ‘goodbye to his partner in crime’. ‘A little boy should not have to say goodbye to his partner in crime, his play mate, his best friend, his little sister,’
Mr Sooter said. ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. But this is the broken world we live in.’ Addy was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic potine glioma in 2016. It’s a type of brain tumour that affects muscles, nerves, heart rate and breathing. The little girl from Rogers, Arkansas, US, spent the next year and a half undergoing 33 rounds of chemotherapy.
It stopped the tumour for a while, but it started growing again and the family were forced to pay over £150,000 for experimental treatment in Mexico. But the tumour continued to spread and on June 3, the family prepared to say their goodbyes.
Writing on a Facebook page that kept Addy’s supporters updated, Mr Sooter wrote: ‘Addy’s symptoms have progressed rapidly over the past day and a half.
‘Yesterday she woke up as her spunky playful self. ‘While we still see short instances of our girl she can no longer eat or swallow without difficulty and she’s sleeping most of the time now and we’ve admitted her into inpatient care. ‘Most likely she doesn’t have much time left.’ Just hours after the picture of Jackson refusing to leave his sister’s side was shared, Addy sadly passed away.
Mr Sooter later shared the tragic news to Addy’s wellwishers: ‘She passed from this life to the next just as she had lived: stubbornly but also peacefully, and surrounded by family. ‘She wasn’t in any pain at the end. For those who were wishing to say goodbye, I’m so sorry. ‘This all happened so much faster than we expected, but that in itself is a blessing because she suffered so little at the end.’
