15yo Matt Tremble ready to beat cancer diagnosis

After a multitude of tests and scans Matt was diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphatic cancer in mid-July.

READ ALSO:

Matt is no stranger to beating the odds and has overcome many challenges throughout his life. He has undergone 31 major surgeries to date, and is one of the youngest Australians to ever receive a kidney transplant.

"You don't expect a kidney transplant and cancer in one lifetime, let alone in 15 years of life," his mother Ms Tremble said.

Matt had his first operation at three weeks old, and in Ms Tremble's words "almost died" at five weeks old. By nine months he went into renal failure.

At 17 months he received a kidney transplant donated by his loving mother.

"Matt is the most vibrant and alive child you would ever meet in your whole life," she said.

"Everyone loves him, he lights up the room, we gave him a second chance and he took it and ran."

Six weeks ago Ms Tremble noticed Matt was losing weight and while he was usually "not a really good eater", he was "fighting more with food".

That's when she knew something was wrong.

"I said to the renal team, let's see what the kidneys doing. Let's go for a scan," Ms Tremble said.

"They found a mass in the abdomen area which was pushing on his stomach."

Despite everything the pair remain strong.

"Matt has days of being down, and I said you can be in pity town but you're not going to live there," Ms Tremble said.

"We just get up and get on with it.

"I'm not a religious person but I think everything happens for a reason."

The "cheeky" boy started chemo on Sunday last week. After a stressful few days and a bad reaction to a drug Matt was back to cracking jokes by Thursday.

"This is not going to beat him and I've promised him a motorbike. I said if you beat this unscathed I'll buy you a motorbike," Ms Tremble said.

"He's a bloody good kid."

While the doctors were aggressively treating the cancer, "they have to be cautious of the donated kidney".

"The doctors and nurses are just beautiful," the mother said.

"We're lucky in a lot of ways and we just have to stay positive."

While COVID-19 restrictions at Sydney Children's Hospital only allow one visitor, Matt has kept in regular contact with friends and family over the phone.

While Ms Tremble enjoyed the quiet of the usually bustling hospital, it was "hard on family... you feel a little bit isolated in that sense. You haven't got that backup."

On August 1 friends from the Rugby Union club started a fundraiser to help Matt fight cancer.

"He's never been allowed to play football, he can't play contact sports because of the kidney transplant. But they just all adore him," Ms Tremble said.

"He's very cheeky but he'd be the first one to reach out if one of his friends was going through something.

"Matt has always got the right thing to say, he just says the right thing at the right moment."

Ms Tremble was extremely thankful for the fundraiser. At the time of publication almost $16,000 had been raised to help the family.

She said Matt's friends had organised the campaign completely on their own, unprompted by her.

"I've worked and I've got a little bit of money saved but having a sick child just costs a lot of money," she said.

"I've always done things myself... but I don't know how long this is going to last and I don't know how long he's going to be in hospital."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: