Reporter: Peter Overton
Producers: Glenda Gaitz and Hugh Nailon
It's something you can't explain. It's just there, a parent's ferocious instinct to protect their children.
We'd do anything at all to keep them from harm. To make them well if they get sick.
The worse the illness is, the stronger the parents have to be. And it doesn't get much worse than neuroblastoma.
Although you've probably never heard of it, it's the most aggressive cancer a child can have.
So naturally, everyone involved needs incredible strength just to get through each day.
But in the case of Olivia and Dylan and their families, there's much, much more. A super-human effort to beat this dreadful disease.
Story Contacts and Info:
Olivia Lambert
Please visit this site: www.everydayhero.com.au/Olivia_Lambert to find out more about Olivia's journey and to see how 'The Olivia Lambert Appeal' is raising much-needed funds for neuroblastoma research at Sydney Children's Hospital.
Dylan Hartung
For any information on Dylan Hartung, please visit his website: www.dylanhartung.net
Neuroblastoma Research
To support neuroblastoma research at the Centre for Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders at Sydney Children’s Hospital, please call 1800 644 336 (during business hours), or visit: www.schf.org.au
Full transcript:
STORY - PETER OVERTON: Meeting Olivia Lambert is simply unforgettable. This bubbly 4-year-old captured my heart with her wide-eyed courage and a wisdom beyond her years. Are you a happy girl?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Are you a happy boy?
PETER OVERTON: I am a happy boy.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: I'm a, a brave girl. A brave girl.
PETER OVERTON: Do you know what? I reckon you're one of the bravest people I've met. Olivia is fighting for her life. She has neuroblastoma - the deadliest cancer a child can get. It strikes the nervous system and spreads aggressively through the body. And what's happened to your hair?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: I show you.
PETER OVERTON: Wow.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: All gone.
PETER OVERTON: All gone. Why is it all gone, Olivia?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Cause um, cause the chemo makes it going.
PETER OVERTON: What's that medicine trying to do? Is it trying to make you better?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: It's trying to kill the bad cells.
PETER OVERTON: Olivia's love of life is truly inspiring but the terrible truth is that at her stage of the disease, there is no cure.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: I want to go again!
PETER OVERTON: She's a daredevil!
JAMES LAMBERT: She's incredible. She's so brave. She's not scared of anything, are you?
PETER OVERTON: Olivia's parents, Kirsty and James, are in awe of their daughter's spirit. In the face of every parent's nightmare, it's helped them stay positive through the tough days since the devastating diagnosis two years ago.
KIRSTY LAMBERT: There aren't any words to describe how we felt at that time. It's just, your whole world just falls apart.
JAMES LAMBERT: Absolutely. In the blink of an eye, somebody just reaches in and rips your heart out.
PETER OVERTON: For the Lamberts, life can never be normal. It's a constant round of hospital visits and medical scans. Every test can bring good or bad news, but Olivia faces it all with that same cheerful acceptance.
KIRSTY LAMBERT: She has always coped with everything with such maturity and it's like these kids are almost born with this gift to cope with whatever is thrown her way.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Mummy and Daddy wish they had all the pain, but I got the pain.
PETER OVERTON: Olivia's specialist, Dr Draga Barbaric, has helped her fight this aggressive cancer from the beginning.
PETER OVERTON: She says despite the low survival rates, it's not always a death sentence.
DR DRAGA BARBARIC: There's always hope. There's always a child who will defy the statistics and defy the odds.
PETER OVERTON: As a Dad myself, it's heartbreaking to accompany Dr Barbaric on her rounds at the Sydney Children's Hospital.
DR DRAGA BARBARIC: And Isla's a patient of mine who has neuroblastoma.
PETER OVERTON: Hello, how's your little one going?
MOTHER: That's been quite tense waiting for the final result and, unfortunately, that came back with the worst result possible as well...
PETER OVERTON: There's no stronger bond than that between parent and child. Little wonder they cling to hope and fight this terrible disease with everything they've got. You just think of your own little bubba, don't you? I've got a little one. Can't help but think of her.
JAMES LAMBERT: She's a fighter. She always has been a fighter and she always will be.
PETER OVERTON: So now it's a 1% chance of survival?
KIRSTY LAMBERT: Less than that.
JAMES LAMBERT: But there is hope. Not much, but there's hope.
KIRSTY LAMBERT: It's not zero. That's the way we look at it.
PETER OVERTON: So 'hope' is the word that rings in your ears every second of the day?
KIRSTY LAMBERT: We're hoping for the best - for a miracle, yeah.
PETER OVERTON: For another Australian family, the search for a miracle is happening on the other side of the world. 9-year-old Dylan Hartung has come to New York in a desperate bid to beat his neuroblastoma. Why do you love the statue so much?
DYLAN HARTUNG: Well, it's a sign of freedom and that's what I like to do - to be free.
PETER OVERTON: Free of what?
DYLAN HARTUNG: Cancer.
PETER OVERTON: Four years ago, Dylan's family gave up everything and uprooted their lives in Melbourne, to save his life. A deadly tumour had wrapped around his spine and his Australian doctors had told him it was inoperable. Did they say how long you had to live?
DYLAN HARTUNG: Ah yeah, two months.
PETER OVERTON: Did you understand what that meant?
DYLAN HARTUNG: It was hard to believe, very hard.
MELISSA HARTUNG: The doctors told me that we wouldn't be doing the wrong thing as parents if we made the decision to take him home and love him.
PETER OVERTON: So the doctors were saying to you...
MELISSA HARTUNG: ..he's going to die and we don't have anything more that we can do for you.
PETER OVERTON: Dylan's mum, Melissa, simply couldn't accept the Australian doctors' verdict. With Dylan running out of time, she discovered one last hope - a hospital in New York where doctors were willing to operate to remove the tumour. That was four years ago. Today he's well enough to keep up with his brother Cain, cherishing the days they never thought they'd have together.
CAIN HARTUNG: We were told that he'd only have 2 to 12 months and we were so lucky to be able to come here and just see him like this. The doctors here are amazing, it's just great.
PETER OVERTON: How do you feel when you hear your brother talk about you like that?
DYLAN HARTUNG: Wonderful. I feel like I don't have cancer any more. I feel like we're just back together at home.
PETER OVERTON: Dylan isn't cured. He still has the cancer in his bones and bone marrow, but the surgery has kept him alive longer than anyone predicted.
MELISSA HARTUNG: They have bought him time and they still give him the hope of a cure.
PETER OVERTON: That hope might never happen.
MELISSA HARTUNG: It will happen one day and you don't know whether it's going to happen tomorrow or whether it's going to happen in 20 years, but I'm keeping my son in this world until they come up with the cure.
DYLAN HARTUNG: Well, I know one thing for sure. It's good to be brave. If you believe that you can be brave and you can get through this, then you're going to get through it.
PETER OVERTON: Right now, Dylan's fighting fit and he's determined to stay that way as he participates in several clinical drug trials to find a cure. It's a gruelling regime, but, just like Olivia Lambert, Dylan has an extraordinary maturity for his years. They're managing your cancer?
DYLAN HARTUNG: I'm waiting for a cure. I'm waiting for another treatment and I'm waiting for all that kind of stuff.
PETER OVERTON: You're a very positive young person. Do you ever worry?
DYLAN HARTUNG: I worry every day. I worry about what might happen if this doesn't work, you know.
PETER OVERTON: Olivia's parents, James and Kirsty, also considered going to America, but they've decided to continue treatment in Australia. Here, too, scientists are fighting to find a cure, developing treatments to target the genes that cause neuroblastoma.
JAMES LAMBERT: We spent a lot of time researching, emailing parents who were overseas and there's perhaps some hope, but there's no cure.
PETER OVERTON: You contacted Dylan Hartung's mum, Melissa?
JAMES LAMBERT: She told me that, yes, there's still no cure. There's no magic bullet at the moment.
PETER OVERTON: For now, the best option for Olivia is the most aggressive chemotherapy she can stand.
JAMES LAMBERT: Say, "It's OK, Mummy. Only hair. "
OLIVIA LAMBERT: It's OK.
PETER OVERTON: And, again, her optimism is seeing the family through, even when she's losing her hair.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: I'm going to look beautiful!
PETER OVERTON: It's a life of highs and lows, hope and despair. One moment, a hospital visit from Fairy Sparkle... FAIRY SPARKLE: There's so much to see in a fairy garden, you could go around time and time again...
PETER OVERTON: ..the next, a blood transfusion to make her little body strong enough to withstand the highly toxic chemotherapy. Is that blood?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Yeah, that's blood.
PETER OVERTON: And where's that going?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: That's going to my portacap. It going to be there.
PETER OVERTON: And what's it doing for you?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: It might kill the cancer.
PETER OVERTON: Back home in Canberra, it's James's birthday.
JAMES LAMBERT: I've got a very special wish to make.
KIRSTY LAMBERT: I bet it's the same wish we all wish.
JAMES LAMBERT: Yes.
PETER OVERTON: But again, a happy moment is shattered by another setback - with news that the transfusion hasn't lifted Olivia's blood levels enough to start the latest round of chemo. Not good news.
KIRSTY LAMBERT: Yeah, that's pretty bad.
PETER OVERTON: You've just got the blood test results and what are they? 41?
KIRSTY LAMBERT: 41. They need to be 75 to start chemo.
PETER OVERTON: What? You live on the edge don't you? You have changed your face, your whole... I can feel it.
JAMES LAMBERT: I'm glad we're still going up. I'm trying to be essentially more upbeat. Glad we going but my main concern is just delaying the chemo.
PETER OVERTON: With your birthday wish strong in your mind.
JAMES LAMBERT: Yep. I hope it comes true. You're a great dad and a great mum, you really are. But, within days, there's good news again. Olivia's blood levels have risen and she's able to start her treatment.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Am I having the chemo today?
DR DRAGA BARBARIC: You are having the chemo today. Can you open your mouth big and wide.
PETER OVERTON: After spending time with these families, I'm overwhelmed by the roller-coaster journey they endure. And, somehow, kids like Dylan understand it's a journey driven by hope and the power of their parents' love.
DYLAN HARTUNG: Being brave, being strong, you can get past it. And as long as you can hold on to what you love, you can get through anything.
MELISSA HARTUNG: He's paving the way for research. He's paving the way for the next lot of kids that get cancer, and through doing that he may get a cure.
PETER OVERTON: Are these trials essentially buying him time?
MELISSA HARTUNG: These trials are aimed at a cure and, you know, penicillin was a clinical trial once upon a time. So, you never know. Miracles happen.
PETER OVERTON: For the Lamberts, they know they also need a miracle.
JAMES LAMBERT: I had a dream one night. I just dreamt of giving her away at her wedding and, to me, that just gave me the strength that she's going to make it through all this. She's going to be there. Somehow, she's going to do it.
KIRSTY LAMBERT: Maybe we'll be back here in a couple of years talking about our little miracle and how she pulled through all of this, against the odds because we're just never, ever, going to give up. Ever.
PETER OVERTON: Can I have a kiss?
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Yeah.
PETER OVERTON: Thank you.
OLIVIA LAMBERT: Yucky, yucky!
