A mum has revealed her heartbreak after she spent months away from her newborn daughter fighting cancer – only for the tot not to recognise her when returning home.
When Tia Bee Stokes developed a hacking cough toward the end of her pregnancy, she assumed it would go once she had given birth.
But weeks after welcoming her fifth child into the world, it still wouldn’t budge.
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In fact, the 40-year-old only got worse; from waking up in the middle of the night sweating to loss of appetite and “throbbing” headaches.
Over the next seven months, the once bubbly and energetic person her kids and husband knew had vanished – and it was unclear why.
Until she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a type of fast-growing and aggressive blood cancer.
Doctors advised her loved ones it would be unlikely she’d make it out of hospital alive, and, if she did, it would mean being away from them for the foreseeable.
Sadly, while treatment was a success, the break away meant that her newborn, Rose, now seven, didn’t recognise her mum at all.
“She refused to call me ‘mum’ because she didn’t know me as that,” the dance studio owner told Need To Know.
“I grew her up, and for my own baby not knowing I am her mum is something that pulled on my heart more than anything.
“Each time I came home, there was no bond at all.
“If I’m honest, it wasn’t my battle with cancer that was the hardest thing I had to go through.
“It was gaining my own child’s trust and forming a bond with her – starting as a stranger.
“The first time I came home, I was completely bald.
“To her, I was this scary stranger.
“She had no clue who I was, so balled her eyes out.
“I had already missed out on two months of her life, and then I had to leave again for more treatment.
“It broke my heart.”
Tia, before her diagnosis, used to be a professional dancer and used her skill to raise funds for people with cancer.
14 years into her efforts, she was then diagnosed with her own aforementioned form of the disease in April 2020.
She went from running two dance studios and being an active mum to a complete shell of herself.
Tia, from Utah, US, said: “It was almost like I had the flu.
“I simply put it down to the fact I had just had a baby.
“But it got tougher and tougher.
“I used to be so hands-on with my kids, mostly with all the fun stuff like playing games.
“I couldn’t do that anymore, though.
“I missed out on so much, as all I could do was lie on the couch and hold my baby close while I fought for my life.
“My older kids had to basically learn how to raise themselves at such a young age because my husband was working around-the-clock to keep our house afloat.
“I felt so guilty and sad.”
Doctors struggled to find the exact cause of Tia’s decline until a simple blood count panel found her white blood count was extremely abnormal.
She had an hour to get to the hospital for treatment since her body should’ve been, technically, in a coma.
Tia said: “My husband was told I wasn’t going to make it out.
“He had to make plans for our family to say goodbye and for what to do after I was gone.
“I started chemotherapy, during which I lost my ability to walk, talk and all my motor skills.
“Eventually, I needed a bone marrow transplant as I had acute kidney failure and pneumonia.
“My body was shutting down from all the treatments trying to keep me alive.
“So this was my only option for survival.
“Despite all of that, the biggest heartbreak was having to watch my daughter take her first steps over FaceTime.
“I was totally alone in there, missing out on everything that was important to me.
“It was as if I was simply a body floating from one day to the next, waiting until my time was up.”
Tia fell into a deep depression, where she believed her family would be better off without her.
She said: “The whole battle started to really play tricks on my mind.
“I truly thought if I wasn’t here, if my burden wasn’t theirs to bear anymore, that my family would be better off.
“Then, they surprised me once at the hospital.
“Since it was COVID times, they weren’t able to come close to me.
“I saw them from a distance, though it was the first time I had seen them in person for over a month.
“I sobbed.
“My little boy then said to me: ‘Mum, we miss you more than you ever know.’
“It was all I needed to hear to gain back my strength – and get home to them.”
In December 2020, Tia underwent a bone marrow transplant and 100 days later, was declared in remission.
Now, although she’s out of the woods, it’s taken a lot of effort to regain the relationships she once had with her husband, Andy, 46, and their five kids: Major, 17, Legend, 16, Maize, 13, Taz, nine, and, of course, Rose.
She added: “Simple mundane things have become so special to me now.
“I love doing the laundry, going food shopping and every other chore I have to do.
“Everything is such a gift, and I never take any moment for granted anymore.
“Rose and I are best friends now; we do everything together.
“And I am really close again with my boys, but it’s taken years to get back to this.
“Now, looking back, it felt like cancer was my entire life and would be the end of it, too.
“But I realise that it was just a moment.
“A chapter in part of my story.
“It’s so hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s there, and it’s so worth it.”
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