It’s the only bell more wonderful than jingle bells.<\/p>\n
When six-year-old Laylah-Jane Morton rang the bell at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, it marked the end of her chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer.<\/p>\n
And she had her merry band of eight siblings with her to help her celebrate.<\/p>\n
Her siblings, ranging in age from two to 18, wore ‘brother of a warrior’ and ‘sister of a warrior’ T-shirts for the occasion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Laylah\u2019s sister Charlee-Mae Morton, aged 11. The sisters are part of a blended family of nine children. (ABC News: Janelle Miles)<\/p>\n
It was a Christmas wish come true for the blended family, including parents Emma and Ciaran Morton, who were rocked by Laylah’s leukaemia diagnosis in mid-2023.<\/p>\n
Back then, Laylah’s sister Charlee-Mae wrote a letter to Santa.<\/p>\n
“I know you probably can’t grant this wish, but the most thing I want is for Laylah to get better,” she wrote.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Laylah-Jane Morton with her mother Emma Morton in 2023 while undergoing cancer treatment. (Supplied: Emma Morton)<\/p>\n
The 11-year-old wept during Laylah’s bell ringing ceremony, days out from Christmas Day, with her wish finally granted.<\/p>\n
“It’s a little emotional, just remembering everything that has happened,” Charlee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“She’s amazing. She’s a really good sister. She’s just full of sass.”<\/p>\n
‘It feels like a Christmas miracle’<\/p>\n
Laylah’s mum was 14 weeks’ pregnant with youngest daughter Sophia when her then three-year-old was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia after weeks complaining of fevers and a sore right arm.<\/p>\n
At the time, the family lived in Warwick, south-west of Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Ms Morton said the local hospital turned them away several times, telling them Laylah had no more than a virus.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Laylah with her baby sister, Sophia. Sophia was born about six months after Laylah was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. (Supplied: Emma Morton)<\/p>\n
The little girl was finally diagnosed with cancer when her mum took her back to the emergency department and refused to leave until “she gets checked over properly”.<\/p>\n
Laylah was flown to Brisbane, where she began treatment at the Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH) the next day.<\/p>\n
“Her being unwell was scary,” Ms Morton said.<\/p>\n
“It was very scary for a while.”<\/p>\n
The siblings were separated for months, with some children staying in Leukaemia Foundation accommodation and others being cared for in Warwick by Ms Morton’s brother, Ben Riley.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sign made to mark the end of Laylah\u2019s treatment for leukaemia at Queensland Children’s Hospital. (ABC News: Janelle Miles)<\/p>\n
They were eventually reunited when the family secured a rental property at Flagstone, in Logan, south of Brisbane.<\/p>\n
“To have all the family together \u2026 to have her healthy, it feels like a Christmas miracle,” Ms Morton said.<\/p>\n
“It’s the finish of something so scary and then the start of something so beautiful.<\/p>\n
“That is the only present we need. It’s something money can’t buy. You just can’t buy anything better than her health.”<\/p>\n
‘She’s shown everybody so much courage’<\/p>\n
QCH cancer specialist David Deambrosis \u2014 the man Ms Morton describes as a hero \u2014 attended his patient’s bell-ringing ceremony.<\/p>\n
“He’s like Laylah’s best friend. She just absolutely loves him,” Ms Morton said.<\/p>\n
“They have a little nickname for each other. They call each other Stinkpot.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Six-year-old Laylah-Jane Morton with her Queensland Children\u2019s Hospital cancer specialist, Dr Dave Deambrosis. (ABC News: Nicole Miles)<\/p>\n
“If no-one could get Laylah to do anything, it was like, let’s just get onto Dave and as soon as she knew he was coming, she just lit up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“She knew, ‘Yep, I’m safe’. He’s going to be here for me. He’s just such a wonderful doctor. We could not have got through it without him.”<\/p>\n
Ms Morton also paid tribute to her daughter’s courage during her health ordeal.<\/p>\n
“You watch your child get so ill, so tiny, they can’t eat, they’re in pain a lot, they lose all their hair. It’s quite big for someone so little that doesn’t understand why their hair’s falling out,” the proud mum said.<\/p>\n
“I want everyone to know how strong she was.<\/p>\n
“She’s shown everybody so much courage.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Six-year-old Laylah-Jane Morton with her dogs after recovering from cancer. (Supplied: Emma Morton)<\/p>\n
QCH clinical nurse consultant in oncology, Lucy Seymour, described Laylah as “an absolute firecracker”.<\/p>\n
“She’s been an amazing little girl like most of our kids that we treat,” Ms Seymour said.<\/p>\n
“They take it much better than adults do \u2014 they take it all in their stride.”<\/p>\n
Laylah will continue to attend the hospital as an outpatient for regular check-ups.<\/p>\n
“I’m still going to be nervous that she might relapse but we’re just going to take it day by day and just be thankful,” her mum said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s the only bell more wonderful than jingle bells. When six-year-old Laylah-Jane Morton rang the bell at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[121026,2534,2535,13702,134,121027,121028,37611,105885,111,139,69,121023,52410,1881,121024,121025,121022],"class_list":{"0":"post-195418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-brother-of-a-warrior","9":"tag-cancer","10":"tag-chemotherapy","11":"tag-hair-loss","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-laylah","14":"tag-laylah-jane-morton","15":"tag-leukemia","16":"tag-logan","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-qch","21":"tag-queensland-childrens-hospital","22":"tag-recovery","23":"tag-ringing-the-bell","24":"tag-sister-of-a-warrior","25":"tag-warwick"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}