It was a Saturday morning in 2006 when Maree Carland received a phone call from the hospital that would turn her family’s lives upside down.

None more so than her baby boy, Will, whom she and her husband, Martin, had thought was suffering from a bad cold. 

“We thought it was the flu,” Ms Carland said.

“But when they tell you to bring a support person to the hospital …”

The 18-month-old boy was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

There was a small upside to the diagnosis, Ms Carland said.

“They call that the ‘garden variety’. If you have leukaemia, that’s the best one to have.”

So began a long journey to recovery, with Ms Carland and baby Will travelling from their Mount Isa home to live in Brisbane for the next year, leaving behind Will’s older brother, Henry, and dad Martin.

But in March 2007, the family was dealt another blow.

“They’re not sure how it happened. But his oesophagus and trachea fused together and a big hole went between the two,” Ms Carland said.

“So if he’d eat and drink it would go into his lungs or he’d vomit.

Doctors eventually came up with a solution where they would use a section of Will’s stomach to build a tube.

Will’s stomach would then be turned over and the tube would be connected to what was left of his oesophagus.

Martin and Maree were presented with one of the most terrifying decisions they have ever had to make.

“At the time, there had been three children the surgery had been performed on,” Ms Carland said.

“None of those children had survived.

“It was a very scary time for us.”

Will made history and survived the operation.

However, he faced another 17 years of fortnightly, monthly and then yearly hospital visits, as well as ongoing tests and surgeries.

‘Life is good’

Will has lived the past few years with a feeding tube to boost his calorie intake and help him grow but he has just had that removed.

It was his last operation.

While he lives with constant breathlessness and a cough, the now 18-year-old counts his lucky stars.

“I first noticed that my life was different to others when I started prep school. But really, you can’t feel different when you haven’t known anything else. For me, it’s just normal,” he said.

When Will looks back on his childhood, it is filled with golden memories of pizza parties in the hospital with nurses and doctors, and afternoons playing with his dad and brother.

“It didn’t stop me from wrestling with my dad or jumping off the roof with my brother because we thought that would be fun.

The ‘Dr Carland’ dream

For Will, there was never a question about what he would do with the rest of his life.

“I’ve spent so much time in hospital, I just wanted to give back to an industry that has played such an important role in my life,” he said.

“I set my hopes high and I’ve been trying to achieve that ever since.”

He is starting a biomedical science degree at the University of Queensland where he intends to transfer to medicine.

“The opportunity to just help people is what attracts me the most to this career.

“I’m looking forward to being a very poor uni student,” he laughed.