If there was one word to describe 17-year-old Rhianna Truman it would be brave.
Because, as this doting teen mum faces off against the ticking time-bomb that is terminal cancer, she refuses to let it stop her from living her fullest, happiest life with her fourth-month-old son Daeshaun.
Continue to read this story and we dare your hearts not to break…
Diagnosed with a rare bone cancer called adamantinoma in 2012, then, just three years later, told the cancer had spread to her lungs, Rhianna admits she was initially, and understandably, “scared”.
However, when she found out she was pregnant in 2016, the Kiwi teen says it was “my chance to make something good out of my life”.
“I wasn’t planning on getting pregnant but it just happened,” she says, according to Hawke’s Bay TODAY.
“I wasn’t going to let my cancer affect having a child, because he was my all.”
Rhianna with her adorable son Daeshaun.
During her pregnancy, Rhianna was offered treatment that could prolong her life, but potentially harm her unborn baby. She adamantly refused.
Now, four months since giving birth to her sweet baby boy, Rhianna has been told by doctors that curing her cancer is like “finding a needle in a haystack”.
And despite admitting she has had countless sleepless nights since learning that she is terminally ill, Rhianna is striving to stay strong for Daeshaun.
“I just carry on normally I guess. Sometimes you’ve just got to fake that smile, but that’s the only way you get through things sometimes,” she says.
“I write a letter to him every day. Every day since he’s been born I’ve written something about him, or something we’ve done that day.”
“I think if you have a positive mind you have positive outcomes.”
Rhianna has since decided to crowd-fund as much money as she can to not only financially safe-proof Daeshaun’s future, but also so she can take her son on a family holiday before she dies.
“I need your help not just for me but to put my mind at ease that his schooling and his upbringing will be a beautiful one,” she says.
You can donate to Rhianna’s Give A Little page by visiting this website: www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/rhiannaanddaeshaunsjourney
Dig deep, people. Dig deep.
