Will
2026 Recipient
Will’s story from his parents Scott and Heidi:
Our family’s world was turned on its head on April Fool’s Day 2025, when we were told by our GP that ‘it looks like Will has osteosarcoma (bone) cancer’. Following some intermittent but lingering knee pain and a ‘just-to-be-on-the-safe-side’ scan we expected Will to be diagnosed with a generic sport-related injury. Cancer was just not on our radar.
Those first few weeks were particularly horrendous. We just couldn’t compute that our 13-year-old footy and fishing mad youngest son, Will, who looked the picture of health, had a rare and aggressive form of cancer. There just had to be some mistake.
Since his diagnosis we have been thrust into a strange new world of crutches, wheelchairs, disability permits, shower chairs, pee bottles, central lines, chemotherapy rounds, blood counts, medications, transfusions, limb sparing surgery, physiotherapy, rashes, fevers, severe bleeds, MRI and CT scans and nasogastric feeding tubes, to name a few. We remember reading the (short and long-term) side-effects of the chemotherapy medications and thinking ‘how is it possible that subjecting Will to these poisons is our best option for survival?’. It has been (and continues to be) a lot to get our heads around.
Luckily, our amazing surgeon, Dr Guzman, was able to save Will’s leg by removing the tumour and surrounding bone. Will is learning to move and walk again with his new titanium knee and already has a great shark attack story picked out to explain his 30cm scar.
By the time Will finishes his chemo treatment (in early to mid 2026), led by the amazing Dr Elizabeth Hesketh and the truly incredible support team at John Hunter Children’s Hospital, he will have endured around 12 months of chemo. The toll this treatment has taken on his body (and will likely continue to do so into the future) is significant. We just pray that in the end it will have mopped up any cancer cells floating around in his system.
The toll this situation has taken on our family is also significant. Every aspect of our daily life has been forever changed – emotionally, physically, mentally and financially. Life now revolves around Will’s medical needs and to be honest, sometimes his very whimsical wants. We feel guilty that our two older sons have been put on the back burner to some degree and we often get overwhelmed with what Will’s future will look like. We are all continually learning to accept and navigate this unpredictable journey.
The silver lining to this whole sh!t-show is that, as a family, we have had a complete reset on what is actually important to us (cliche we know!). We have also been blown away by the support, generosity and kindness of our beautiful family and friends, as well as that of total strangers.
We are hugely grateful and humbled to be one of CR4K’s recipient families in 2026. Thank you for supporting CR4K’s and in turn, us – the Bickford family.
