Bristol Rugby player Kevin Maggs has spoken for the first

time about his daughter's battle with leukaemia.

The former Ireland centre had been back at his home club for

six months when his daughter, Jessica, was diagnosed with the

disease on New Year's Eve last year. She was just two years and

ten months old.

The news rocked Kevin, 34, and his wife Jayne, 35, and

heralded a traumatic six months while Jessica was treated at

Bristol Children's Hospital.

She is now back at home and full of energy after responding

well to her treatment.

Kevin, who returned home after playing for Ulster for three

seasons and Bath for six, had a nightmare first season back at

Bristol because of persistent injury problems.

But he said his own struggle to get match fit was nothing

compared to his daughter's fight with cancer.

Kevin and Jayne had put Jess's feelings of lethargy down to

a bug picked up at pre-school and had no idea it could be

something so serious.

The couple said the full extent of their little girl's

illness did not really take hold until they arrived at Ward 34

of Bristol Children's Hospital and saw the sign for

oncology.

Kevin said: "All 'round, it has been our worst year

ever.

"Everything had been going so well, we were coming home and

then as soon as we came back everything started to go

wrong.

"It was the worst year in my career injury-wise and we were

just looking forward to getting to New Year and putting it

behind us and trying to forget about the six months since we

had returned.

"To find out Jess had leukaemia on New Year's Eve was the

worst thing I could have heard."

The couple feel they were lucky that the GP they saw on New

Year's Eve had picked up that Jess's pallor and dark bruises

were a possible sign of leukaemia and rushed a blood test

through.

They took the sample to the Royal United Hospital in Bath

themselves, to ensure they were seen straight away and the

initial diagnosis was made.

Jess was then referred to Bristol Children's Hospital from

January 1, where it took five days for doctors to determine

that they were dealing with acute myeloid leukaemia and could

start the first of four rounds of chemotherapy and almost six

months in hospital.

Jayne, 35, said: "My instant reaction was, 'we are going to

lose her'.

"You think my child's not sick like the others on the

ward."

"You are not sure until you are in that situation how

complex it is", Kevin added.

Jayne said: "It was the last thing we would have thought of.

We went from thinking she had just caught a virus to being told

that she had leukaemia, it was devastating."

One of the hardest parts of Jess's illness for Jayne to deal

with was when her daughter lost her long, blonde curly

hair.

But she was impressed by the way the youngster dealt with

it.

"She would just say 'it'll grow back mummy'.

"And she told one of her aunties, quite matter of fact, that

her hair was in a carrier bag."

During Jess's treatment, Jayne would stay on the ward six

nights a week and on Fridays, Kevin would take a fold-out

bed.

He said: "The rugby club were very good to me and my

situation. I would come in and do my rehab, recovery and

conditioning as much as I could in the morning, which would

allow me to go down and spend time with my wife and daughter in

hospital in the afternoon."

The family were also relieved that they had their friends

and family around them during Jess's treatment.

Kevin said: "We are lucky that our family are from Bristol

and our support network was around us. We had only been back

from Belfast for six months."

Jayne said: "It would have been incredibly difficult for us

to deal with that so far away from friends and family.

"If you can be glad about things involving leukaemia, we

were glad we were here."

They saw other families on the ward who were staying in CLIC

House because they were so far away from home and otherwise

would have had to rely on hotels to be near their children.

Jess took much of the treatment in her stride, although was

adamant that she did not want a feeding tube like some of the

other children on the ward.

Her parents said she got through the days when she was low

from the medication by watching DVDs, usually featuring

princess stories.

While Jess was in hospital and for the first couple of

months afterwards, her parents made the difficult decision to

keep her friends and much of her family away for fear of

passing on bugs while her immune system was down.

Now the youngster, who turned three while in hospital, is

happy and healthy and runs around the house like any other

three-and-a half-year-old. She is looking forward to going back

to pre-school to play with her friends after almost nine months

away.

The couple were impressed by the efforts of all the staff

that helped them and their daughter during their stay at the

children's hospital, from domestics to doctors, including

nurses and play specialists.

Kevin said: "I don't think people realise sometimes that the

children's hospital is such a main centre for oncology and

general child health.

"We want to thank everyone on Ward 34 and the children's

hospital, all the doctors and nurses who helped us get through

the worst five-and-a-half months of our lives, and the play

specialists and domestics.

"The NHS has been brilliant."

Jayne added: "We are so grateful they helped her get out the

other end because there were times when she was really ill, as

are all the other children in there. You would wonder if their

little bodies could get through it."

Despite responding well to treatment, Jess still has to

return to Bristol Children's Hospital once a month for

check-ups, but now she is at home and enjoying the chance to

run around and play with her toys.