By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
“IF YOU’RE not smiling, why not, because Seth is.”
Simon Sleep always signs off his emails with this refrain. Seth is Simon’s seven-year-old son and he was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2012.
Simon uses his son’s courage in the face of adversity as a pillar of strength for himself, and he’s not the only one.
Family friend Stu Woolf will be participating in the 2014 Relay for Life and is using Seth as inspiration to walk his goal of 80 kilometres for the event, surpassing last year’s personal best of 60.
Other friends will be cutting their hair for the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave, in support of Seth.
Seth inspired Stu to keep walking last year in the Relay for Life and 2014 won’t be any different, with the seven-year-old planning to join in on the walk.
Simon, his wife Nikki, and their two-year-old daughter Holly will also be by Seth’s side.
“Last year Stu got to the 48-kilometre mark and he was a mess, but when he saw Seth he picked him up and just kept going,” Simon said.
This is the type of inspiration that Seth’s battle with cancer is able to ignite, and a way in which the journey is made that little bit easier for Simon and Nikki.
“Seth knows he has leukaemia and although he’s not exactly sure what’s going on, sometimes he’ll tell us when he needs to go to the hospital,” Simon said.
Seth has just passed the halfway mark of his chemotherapy and is responding reasonably well to the treatment, but Simon admitted there were constant challenges.
“His birthday is on Valentine’s Day and last year he was too sick to have a birthday party,” Simon said.
“We can’t forward plan. Things can come up at the drop of a hat.”
Last year Seth was forced to miss over 60 days of school.
But while their lives are punctuated by hospital visits and medication, Simon said it was reassuring for him and Nikki to see fragments of light at the end of the tunnel.
“The tunnel’s getting shorter, we’ve passed the halfway mark,” Simon said.
“More than once we just keep going.”
And earlier this month, on 14 February, Seth woke on his birthday in his own bed.
