Cancer treatment isn’t something that two-year-old August will likely remember. But for parents Madison and Matt, it’s a period in their son’s life they will never forget.  

August, known as Augie to his family, had an uneventful start to life. He was hitting all his milestones, gaining weight and as Madison describes, he was “just a happy baby.” 

Then, at four months old, everything changed.  

“Augie had just woken up from a nap, and I noticed he had quite a teary eye. I didn’t think much of it at the time, assuming it was a blocked tear duct. Over the weekend, his eye remained teary on and off. He wasn’t upset by it, but something didn’t sit right with me,” explained Madison. 

“I remember saying to my husband and my mum ‘something isn’t right.’ We made a general practitioner (GP) appointment for a few days later,” she added.   

The GP took one look at Augie and told Madison to go straight to The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) where he was triaged and taken for a computed tomography, also known as a CT, scan.  

“I could tell straight away they were concerned. They told us there was a mass behind his eye, and they’d need to take a biopsy to confirm what exactly it was,” Madison said.  

A few days later, Augie’s diagnosis was confirmed – he had rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and highly aggressive type of cancer. He started chemotherapy straight away, visiting the hospital every three weeks.  

“We hoped that chemo would work by itself, and he wouldn’t need radiation. After a few cycles, we were told that while the cancer was responding to chemo, it wasn’t responding how they wanted so the next step would be radiation,” said Madison.  

Clinicians recommended Augie try Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) which is known as the gold standard of cancer treatment. PBT treats cancer by delivering a burst of high precision proton energy without impacting healthy tissue, ensuring the best treatment for patients. Unfortunately, PBT isn’t available in Australia, so the family prepared to travel to Florida – their only hope to receive this specialised treatment.  

“We were meant to leave in mid January – everything was booked, and we were ready to go. Just after Christmas, Augie had a scan which showed the cancer was growing in a different spot,” explained Madison. 

“His oncologist, Michael, said he’d never seen this type of cancer behave like this before. They did another biopsy and found out he had a mutation. From my understanding, Augie is the only case ever reported to have this type of mutation within his tumour type,” Madison continued.  

Suddenly, Florida was off the table. Augie needed radiotherapy immediately.  

“It was heartbreaking because we’d been told PBT was the better option, and we didn’t know what the side effects would be with traditional radiation. You know, it had the potential to impact parts of his brain like his memory, and his pituitary gland – stuff that will impact him well into the future. But we knew we had no other option because he wasn’t healthy enough to travel.” 

Almost two years on from his diagnosis, Augie is doing well. He has officially finished treatment and is looking forward to becoming a big brother later this year.  

While Madison is immensely grateful for the care and treatment they received at both the RCH and Peter Mac, she does wonder what Augie’s future would have looked like had he have been able to access PBT closer to home.  

“I think about it all the time. Even now, he wears sunglasses most of the time when we’re outside, because the radiation has essentially dried up all his tears,” said Madison.  

“It sounds so cliché, but you never think cancer will happen to your child, and if it does, you want the best possible treatment, so I’d encourage everyone to donate and help bring PBT to Melbourne,” she added.