Amy refused to believe the Google results when she looked up her daughter's symptoms

When Izzy Schleicher's little brother William was born, she turned to mum Amy and uttered five words that broke her heart.

"Mummy, will the baby have chemo?"

Izzy asked it so innocently, totally unaware that her childhood full of anaesthetics, needles, tests and scans wasn't normal.

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"For another family, that would be mortifying, but for Izzy it's normal," mum Amy tells 9honey.

"She just thinks that's what every kid goes through. We've had to explain to her that not all kids have chemo, not all kids have a port in their chest."

An emergency department nurse, Amy knew something was wrong when Izzy started limping at age two, then developed a rash and fever.

Like any first-time parent, she turned to the internet.

"When I Googled, it came up saying leukaemia. I was like, 'No, that's not it,'" Amy recalls.

She took Izzy to the hospital where she works and had her colleagues run some tests.

Eventually, a distressed-looking doctor led Amy to one of the cubicles she walked past every day. Then he opened his mouth and Amy's world fell apart.

"We think Izzy's got cancer."

At just two, Izzy was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Amy had seen so many patients receive horror diagnoses in that cubicle, but she never dreamed it would happen to her little girl.

"You're not really ever expecting to face your two year old's mortality. You never, ever really expect to outlive your two year old," she admits.

The worst part was that Izzy's dad Matt, who is a fly-in fly-out worker, was away on a distant job site when she was diagnosed.

Doctors urged Amy not to tell him until he got home. She refused.

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"I said, 'No, he'll know something's up and then if something happens, he'll never forgive me,'" Amy says. As soon as she told him, Matt was racing home.

Days later, the Schleicher family started Izzy's treatment journey, which would end up lasting more than 800 days.

Her cancer treatment involved chemotherapy, more than 20 anaesthetics and lumbar punctures (each) and seemingly endless days spent in hospital.

Amy was glad she'd been a nurse for so long, as it helped her understand all the medical jargon and she had the support of all her colleagues, many of whom were paediatric nurses.

They understood what she was facing and helped teach her how to explain cancer to Izzy, validate her pain and support her through the scary parts of treatment.

"I needed to be a mum, not a nurse. She didn't need another healthcare professional, she needed mum," Amy explains.

For the next three years, her job was to get Izzy through all her appointments, scans and tests. Matt's job was to "keep a roof over their heads".

He kept working FIFO, often supporting his little girl from afar while she dreamed of one day going on a plane "like daddy does for work". 

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It's the kind of experience most Australians take for granted but in the darkest days of her cancer treatment, her parents feared Izzy would miss out on so many things.

Counselling helped Amy and Matt, as did support from Starlight Children's Foundation's.

The Starlight Express Room gave Izzy a place to just be a kid during treatment, while the Starlight Captains had her smiling and laughing like her old self again.

"Without Starlight, I don't think Izzy would have had that fun to counteract all the trauma she's had to put up with," Amy admits.

After almost three years, Izzy finally wrapped up cancer treatment a few months ago and last week got to live her dream of flying on a plane like her dad.

The Schleichers joined five other Starlight families for Stars of the Future, a special experience that brought their dreams to life at the Virgin Australia Training Centre and Brisbane Airport. 

Seeing their little girl take part was a real full-circle moment for Amy and Matt, who once feared they'd lose Izzy to cancer.

"It seemed kind of surreal in a way," Amy says. "It was quite an emotional trip."

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Now Izzy's in kindy, her health is looking good, and she's a big sister to a little brother who hopefully won't have to learn what words like cancer or chemotherapy mean.

Izzy still needs regular checkups and physio to deal with some of the lingering side-effects from her cancer treatment, but her parents are hopeful.

"We're still very much grieving that normal life that we otherwise would have had," Amy says.

"But at the end of the day, Matt and I swore to each other [that] we're not going to let Izzy be defined by this. Izzy is not her leukaemia, she is a wonderful kid with so much more to offer."

She urges other parents to advocate for their children if they think something's wrong and trust their gut; after all, that's what led to Izzy's diagnosis.

Amy still walks past the cubicle where Izzy was diagnosed with cancer all the time at work, but her steps are getting lighter with each passing day.

Starlight Children's Foundation always needs support. Learn more and donate here.

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