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Carrie Bickmore Breaks Down Meeting Parents of Boy With Terminal Cancer

The TV host couldn’t hold back the tears on last night’s episode of The Project

On Monday’s episode of The Project, Carrie Bickmore visited the home of Isabella and Roy Darch, whose son Bede is suffering from terminal brain cancer.

Three-year-old Bede has been given just six months to live.

The story is one that is close to Bickmore’s own heart, after losing her husband Greg Lange to brain cancer in 2010.

Bede began to experience symptoms at just six weeks of age, and by three months doctors told his parents the cancer had spread into the brain stem and spine.

“He just became emaciated,” Isabella told Bickmore. “Every bone on his body, every ligament, parts of his skull started to look like horns, the skin was hanging off him. And he was growing back into clothes he’d outgrown.”

The cancer was so aggressive, it continued to spread and did not respond to chemo. 

“The tools Bede has fought with isn’t necessarily this arsenal of meds but the love that we give him and that he gives us,” Darch said. “We always say his life is a miracle of medicine and love because they’ve fought hand-in-hand.”

“He’s such a joyful little kid,” Bickmore said as she fought back tears. “The hours that I’ve been here and seeing him with his brother — their heads so close together. It’s like their happy space.”

The parents went on to speak about their day-to-day life and what it involves to care for Bede, which has become so demanding Roy lost his job.

“Some days he just screams,” Roy told Bickmore. “All day long, 23 hours a day. He wasn’t in control of his body or the agitation that he had. And all we could do was hold him.”

“We had a choice,” continued Isabella. “We could cry and grieve and that’s Bede’s experience of his life, or we sing and we play and we laugh and we joke and that’s his experience of the world.”

Bede’s mother made headlines back in April when she wrote a controversial blog post in which she confessed that she wanted her son to die.

“It’s horrible feeling so much love for someone and at the same time wishing that it could all be over for them,” said Isabella, also fighting back the tears.

After the piece had aired, the TV host added, “I think for all the people who had an opinion and judgement after that post she wrote, until you’ve walked in someone’s shoes …”

A GoFundMe page which had been set up to help cover the costs of Bede’s therapy had $36,000 in donations, and since the segment aired it now has over $223,000.

“Project viewers you are an incredibly generous bunch,” Bickmore tweeted after the show. “Thank you”.  

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