My Family's Keeper Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my beloved parents Anne and Ross,

  brothers Michael and Christopher,

  wife Karina, and children Zachary, Mia and Hugo.

  In the end, nothing else matters.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Foreword by Ricky Ponting

  Introduction by Dr Luciano Dalla-Pozza

  1 Down the rabbit hole

  2 Sport, sport and more sport

  3 No longer a normal family

  4 Finding my power

  5 Back from the brink

  6 The apprentice

  7 Without family there’s nothing

  8 From the Comets to the Blues

  9 A taste of the big time

  10 Doing the Blues proud

  11 Learning from the best

  12 A character-building year

  13 Pain on and off the field

  14 Coming back and coming home

  15 Renewal in the air

  16 The greatest victory

  17 Pulling up stumps

  Epilogue

  Photo Section

  Afterword by Daniel Lane

  Career Record of Bradley James Haddin

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  FOREWORD BY

  RICKY PONTING

  SOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME that loyalty is more than just a word: it’s a way of life. No-one epitomises this more than Brad Haddin. Fiercely loyal to his friends, fiercely loyal to his teammates and, most important of all, fiercely loyal and completely devoted to his family.

  I am very honoured to write the foreword to Brad’s book, which gives us an insight into his life and, in particular, the challenges he and his remarkable wife, Karina, confronted head-on when Mia became ill. Brad and Karina’s story is one of great determination and strength of character; a story of unrelenting sacrifice and commitment; and, above all, a story of a beautiful family that deserve a long and happy life together.

  Brad, or Hadds, as he is more affectionately known to me, is one of our country’s best-ever wicketkeeper–batsmen. He’s right up there in every statistic across all three forms of the game, as well as for his longevity, playing 66 Test matches and 126 One Day Internationals (ODIs) for Australia. From the first time we played against each other in a Tasmania vs Canberra Comets game in the late 1990s to our very last Test match together in January 2012 at the Adelaide Oval, Hadds never stopped impressing me. He had an unbelievable work ethic and his preparation was second to none. Hadds’s attacking style stood out, whether it was with the bat, looking to aggressively take control of every ball, or by pushing his teammates to find a way to win a game, no matter what situation we were in.

  He was extremely competitive on and off the field. He was what I like to call a winner. At training, he was always working at full pace with his keeping drills, or wanting bowlers to try and knock his head off in the nets. Hadds gave it 100 per cent all the time.

  I used to enjoy standing at second slip and listening to his friendly banter when we were in the field. His glove work was outstanding too. He was also one of the very best at celebrating a victory, and I have so many wonderful memories of those moments shared with Hadds and our teammates. I will also never forget sharing a 151-run partnership with Hadds in an ODI against New Zealand in 2010. We had a lot of fun that day, and Hadds went on to score 110, which was his highest-ever international ODI knock.

  But this story is not so much about cricket as it is about a family that was thrown a curve ball with Mia’s diagnosis in 2012. Reading these pages, you will be deeply moved as you go back in time with Brad and Karina and follow their family’s private journey through Mia’s treatment and everything that came with that. You will be inspired by their resilience and strength of character. You will be touched by the raw emotion of dealing with a seriously sick child, and I know that you will finish this book feeling like you know a very special family in Brad and Karina Haddin and their three gorgeous children, Zac, Mia and Hugo.

  INTRODUCTION BY

  DR LUCIANO DALLA-POZZA

  IN CARING FOR CHILDREN confronting illness and facing a future under threat, there are moments — many in fact — when you pause and reflect on their strength and tenacity. Yet, as great as the challenges are for them, a substantial, sometimes overwhelming, burden falls squarely on the shoulders of their families, who are thrust without warning or preparation into a setting outside their influence or control. On the morning I first met Brad Haddin, before I introduced myself, I could only speculate what was going through his mind. He sat quietly in a chair, shadowed by his wife, Karina, both keeping an anxious, exhausting vigil over their restless daughter, Mia — a perfect little girl in an imperfect world. In the next few moments both were poised to make a choice in her care — to run from this dire situation or meet the challenges head-on.

  Over the ensuing months and years, when the cancer ward became a resented and unwanted second home, Brad and Karina, supported by a loving extended family, navigated the fog of uncertainty that is a part of the care of critically ill children, with a clarity that constantly impressed. They faced many difficult decisions. The choices they made reflected an approach that in turn served to inspire other families and staff. In all of this, I cannot think of Brad without also thinking of Karina, locked together in a desire to extract from uncertainty a strategy that offered hope for their daughter.

  It is clear that the same unique qualities Brad brought to cricket, which characterised and moulded his approach as a player, proved crucial in the clear, unambiguous, family-focused choices he and Karina made together, and that these choices define him as a person, a partner and, crucially, as a parent. Choices maketh the man.

  Brad’s impressive achievements and choices in cricket are dwarfed by the profound influence that he and Karina have had on the lives of their children. Mia has simply been the most obvious beneficiary of their love and attention. They nurtured and sustained the hope in their family and friends that an unwavering effort would yield results, allowing Mia to reach and participate in a future full of promise and possibilities.

  Together, Brad and Karina have since extended their efforts and influence outside their immediate world, reaching into areas that will serve to improve the outcome and care of children with cancer through research and support. They have moved from confronting challenges to seeking solutions that make a genuine difference.

  If luck has anything to do with life, then Mia was unlucky in having to confront a serious illness at such a young age. Yet rainbows can only be seen with the sun at your back. Standing behind Mia were two people who secured her health and welfare and allowed her to blossom. She was hugely fortunate in having Brad and Karina as her parents.

  Dr Luciano Dalla-Pozza

  Senior Staff Specialist

  Cancer Centre for Children

  The Children’s Hospital at Westmead

  CHAPTER 1

  DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

  ‘IS SHE GOING TO die? Is Mia going to die?’

  The instant my phone buzzed at 6.30 a.m. Caribbean time I knew something was wrong back at home. The display showed it was Karina calling. For more than a decade she had been waving me off on tour to play cricket around the world. Remembering time-zone differences was second nature to her. She would never have rung at this time unless there was bad news that couldn’t wait. My stomach tightened as I reached over to the bedside table.

  In theory it could have been anyone in the family who was in crisis — one of our parents or siblings or our three-and-a-halfyear-old son, Zac. It could have been Karina herself, 30 weeks’ pregnant with our third child. But my mind went straight to Mia, our funny, cheeky, adorable 16-month-old daughter.
I was sure even before Karina spoke that it was our little girl she was calling about. I braced myself for what I was about to hear, but what Karina told me was worse than anything I could ever have imagined.

  It was 15 March 2012 and I was in Kingstown, St Vincent, on a two-month Australian cricket tour. The tour took in five One Day Internationals (ODIs), two Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) and three Test matches. The first game, a one-dayer, was scheduled for the following day. I was very unlikely to be playing in it, after not being picked for recent limited-overs games, but come the first Test in Bridgetown, Barbados, in two weeks’ time, I’d be doing the job I loved and had worked so hard to earn — keeping wicket for my country. I knew I could perform well enough both behind the stumps and with the bat to silence the critical chatter that had been directed at me for months. I’d done the hard work to fix the grip problems that had affected my batting. Let people say what they liked; my performance on the pitch would be my answer. That’s what I’d been thinking as I went to bed the night before, but what Karina was about to tell me would change everything.

  The reason I was so certain the call was going to be about Mia was because Karina and I both felt that something hadn’t been quite right with her for a while. We’d talked about it before I’d flown out for the West Indies at the end of February. It was hard to put a finger on what was wrong, just that something seemed . . . off. Mia had been progressing through the various stages of life as a toddler in leaps and bounds, but recently it was almost as if she was regressing to babyhood: wanting to walk less on her own, becoming much more clingy, and sleeping more. Having pretty much dropped to one nap a day, she now often went back to having two, and she didn’t have to be persuaded, she’d just curl up and drop off. She was often paler and more irritable than usual too and had produced some spectacular projectile vomits. But despite all this she wasn’t obviously crook. She’d have good days when she was her usual perky, adventurous self and nothing seemed wrong at all, then she’d have days when she wasn’t quite so bright. We’d taken her to the GP, but he’d reassured us that she probably just had a virus. That made sense and, sure enough, she would bounce back a few days later, but then she’d start to seem unwell again.

  Because her symptoms came and went, it was hard to say how long it had been going on for, but when we really tried to pin it down we thought maybe the first signs that something was amiss had been at the beginning of February or maybe even a little bit earlier. Taken on its own, each ‘symptom’ fell within normal childhood experience. As we knew from Zac and the other little ones among our family and friends, kids of that age always seem to be coming down with one lurgy or getting over another. (I once heard a doctor explain it by saying that this period in their life is all about building up the catalogue in their ‘germ library’: every cold or tummy bug they have teaches their immune system more about how to fight back the next time. So apparently going from one thing to the next is normal.) Then there was her lack of energy and colour. Well, growth spurts can make kids a bit more tired than usual and tired kids tend to look pale. Besides, Mia was a strawberry blonde with a pale complexion at the best of times.

  But when we stepped out of the hustle and bustle of busy family life and really started to look at the pattern of her ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’, it was obvious she was struggling with something. Karina and I discussed it before I left. Maybe Mia had developed an allergy or food intolerance, or maybe she’d picked up some bug that was a bit more hard-hitting than the usual common cold.

  Not long after I’d flown out of Sydney, Karina had taken the kids a couple of hours north to Nelson Bay for a week away to celebrate her mum’s 60th birthday. As well as Karina’s sister, Danielle, and parents, Margaret and Phil, her aunt, uncle and cousins and their families were there, all staying in one big house they had rented for the occasion. It was planned as a really nice break for everyone. Karina and I reasoned that if Mia was just fighting something off, this holiday would give her a chance to rest up and be spoiled. Karina would keep a close eye on her and if she didn’t seem to be improving they would see our family doctor when they returned home.

  As always when I was away, most days I’d spoken to Karina and the kids via phone or occasionally Skype. I knew they were having a really lovely holiday in general but Mia wasn’t picking up the way we’d hoped, so a couple of days into the break, accompanied by Danielle, Karina took her along to a doctor at a nearby medical centre. Mia was so drowsy she was almost asleep in Karina’s arms when they were called in. The doctor examined Mia, paying special attention to her abdomen. He said he thought her liver might be a bit enlarged, but it didn’t seem to be a great concern. He advised Karina to wait until she returned home the following week, then see our usual family GP, saying, ‘He might do some blood tests and request a few things like that, if you’re worried about her.’

  When they did arrive back in Sydney it was easier, with me away, for Karina and the kids to go to her parents’ house in Killara for the night rather than back to our place, an extra 20 minutes’ drive away in Tennyson Point. When I called them, Karina told me that she’d made an appointment to take Mia to the doctor the following day. She was determined to find out what was wrong and her dad, who runs his own business, had offered to free her up by taking Zac to work with him. Our usual GP wasn’t available, but one of his colleagues in the same excellent practice was, and Karina promised to give me an update when we spoke 24 hours or so later. But instead of waiting until the evening, my time, to call, she was ringing first thing. I realised Mia must have something serious, maybe an infection.

  ‘Karina, hi. What’s up? Are you okay? Is it Mia? What happened at the doctor’s?’

  ‘Brad, I’m ringing from the Children’s Hospital. She’s got a tumour. Mia has cancer.’

  We both reeled through the rest of that conversation in a state of shock, but I later found out exactly how a day that had started out in Sydney with an 11.30 a.m. check-up had unfolded, sending us all into freefall.

  As soon as the GP, Dr Amrit Hingorani, had seen Mia he’d remarked with concern on her lack of colour. When we looked back on the photos from the holiday, it’s striking how pale she was, but because it had happened little by little, and came and went, Mia’s lack of colour hadn’t alerted the people closest to her the way it did to a new person seeing her for the first time. Dr Hingorani said Mia looked anaemic and, feeling her abdomen, he echoed the verdict of the Nelson Bay doctor that her liver was enlarged.

  He decided to send her for a blood test to check various key measures, including the level of her haemoglobin (the substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body). He said it would be fine for this to happen the following day, Friday, but in the meantime he asked Karina to take Mia for an ultrasound. He made the call himself, requesting it as a matter of urgency to make sure they got an appointment that afternoon. Karina is a radiographer, so she understands very well the workings of the human body and, despite the doctor’s reassuring manner, her concern level had risen sharply at the turn things were taking. He tried to calm her fears as she and Mia were heading out, saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get a call from the ultrasound clinic if there’s anything wrong and call you straight away; otherwise I’ll ring you when the blood test results are back.’

  Wanting information as soon as possible, and with just about enough time to get it done, Karina decided not to wait until the next day for the blood test. She squeezed it in, then raced Mia to her 2 p.m. ultrasound. Despite being too young to understand what was happening, Mia lay down on the ultrasound table and stayed there patiently as the procedure went on for what Karina knew was an unusually long time.

  Generally the sonographer does the ultrasound and then later a specialist doctor, a radiologist, checks the scans and writes the report that will go back to the referring GP. But in Mia’s case the sonographer went and got the radiologist and asked her to look at what he was seeing on his screen. Karina tried not to read too much into this �
�� sometimes they just want a little extra clarification, or they’re starting out and need guidance. But then the sonographer asked as casually as he could manage if she was taking Mia back to the doctor that afternoon. Karina told him they weren’t; the doctor had advised he would contact her if there was a problem. When the sonographer didn’t say anything further she knew something was definitely wrong.

  The radiologist said they would like to do a CT scan to get a better picture of what was happening with Mia. As CT scans are a kind of x-ray, everyone but the patient has to leave the room, so Karina could not sit by Mia’s side holding her hand as she had done during the ultrasound. Mia got so upset when Karina left the room that they called off the procedure, saying the best plan would be to make an appointment at the Children’s Hospital, Westmead, where everything was set up to make the process easy for children. That made sense.

  It was after four when Mia and Karina left, carrying the oversized envelope containing the scans and the written report for Dr Hingorani. Throughout the day Mia had been too tired and unwell to walk, so Karina had either carried her or used the pram, as she did now, going back to the parked car. With Mia buckled into her child-seat, dozing, Karina opened the sealed envelope and pulled out a report that was headed ‘Confidential’. She read on, skipping ahead to what they’d found: ‘There is a large, lobulated, solid mass arising from the medial upper pole of the right kidney . . . There is a mass effect exerted on the right kidney . . . The liver is also displaced by the mass . . . The findings would be most consistent with a Wilms tumour.’ It would have all been gobbledygook to me, but Karina understood exactly what it meant. It meant our beautiful daughter had cancer.

  On the one hand Karina felt stunned by this news, but on the other at least we now had an answer as to what was going on, and once you have a diagnosis a treatment plan can follow. Both of the GPs who had seen Mia had thought her liver was enlarged but the scans had revealed that wasn’t the case; it was the large mass pushing the liver forward that deceptively made it seem bigger. Karina’s medical training really kicked in and she comforted herself with the fact that if it had to be cancer at least it was a Wilms tumour, a rare disease that mostly affects children under five and has a very high survival rate — in fact, if it’s caught early and it’s not aggressive the survival rate is over 95 per cent.