A helpless child writhes in pain as the cancer that is killing her courses through her body.It is a photograph to break the hardest of hearts but the parents of tragic Jessica Whelan, four, do not want readers to turn away. Instead they want them to take a long look at “the true face of cancer”.Dad Andy Whelan posted the image on Facebook after being told his daughter had just weeks to live.
On his blog about her illness he wrote: “This photograph was made in a moment that we as parents could offer her no comfort, her pushing us away whilst she rode out this searing pain in solitude.
“This is the true face of cancer, my baby girl’s blood vessels protruding from beneath her skin, a solitary tear running down her cheek, her body stiffened and her face contorted in pain.”or 13 months, Jessica has been fighting stage four neuroblastoma, a cancer of nerve cells.
Andy, 30, and Jessica’s mum Nicki Pendergast, 28, have decided to stop her treatment after doctors said they could do nothing more. Nicki, also mother to James, 21 months, said last night: “We are really struggling and it’s hard to know that we’re going to lose my daughter.
“We have been told it is going to be a couple of weeks and every day we take as the last. Jessica is on morphine for the pain but seems happy enough.She is a four-year-old child who has no idea and we want it to stay that way. As long as she sees us with smiles on our faces, she’s OK. But how do you cope with losing a child?”
He wrote on his blog: “Perhaps by seeing this photo people not in our position will be made aware of the darkness that is childhood cancer, perhaps these same people may be able to do something about it so that in the future no child has to suffer this pain, so that no parent has to bear witness to their own flesh and blood deteriorating daily.”
His posts have come to the attention of Jessica’s favourite pop star Harry Styles. And Andy revealed the One Direction singer, 22, had phoned the family and offered to make a recording for her.