Little girl’s brave battle with leukaemia inspires Grandpa to write unique memoir

A UNIQUE memoir is charting the true life story of a remarkable little girl who was diagnosed with leukaemia when she was just 10 months old.

Sorrelle Turnbull is now 10 years old and like other children her age loves swimming and gymnastics.

Her grandpa Sam Price, 61, says she’s “intelligent and articulate, but that’s probably because she has had adults talking to her from an early age in a way that other children wouldn’t have.”
But she didn’t have the easiest start in life.
As a baby, she underwent gruelling treatment to keep her alive after being diagnosed with infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
The book details her journey through the eyes of her grandpa, who works for Warrington Borough Council.

Sorrelle was treated for the leukaemia by a team of medics at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
She was diagnosed in 2015 at the age of just ten months old. When she completed her hospital treatment in 2018, she’d undergone two bone marrow transplants, had suffered kidney failure and sepsis and had part of her bowel removed.
Her grandpa says she will be “medicated for life” as a result of the impact of her illness.

Initially, Mr Price put pen to paper in a closed Facebook group for family and friends who wanted updates on Sorrelle’s treatment. “I made sure it was written in a way that informed, not alarmed,” he said.
“As the years rolled on and she came to the end of her treatment, I finished doing the posts on Facebook.”
Mr Price came off Facebook, as he said: “I’m not a fan.”
“But my daughter Gemma kept all the messages electronically in a file for me, so at least we had them.”
He explains in the book foreword that the idea came after walking nighttime corridors in the hospital interrupted only by “a nurse’s smile, another parent’s nod” among the beeping of equipment or cry of a child.
The diary of her treatment grew to the size of a novel and transformed into Small Boat in a Big Ocean, which is published on Amazon.
Launched only a week ago, it has already sold more than 36 copies. The official launch is on December 21 at Chorlton Maker’s Market in Manchester.
Her grandpa told Warrington Worldwide: “I put it together every day but I never read it back. It was a very difficult read because it brought things back.
“And I think it was a very similar experience for my daughter when I presented her with the original book last Christmas- it was difficult for her to read and probably for a couple of members of our family.
“It’s only because there’s a happy ending that it’s been written. Without it, it wouldn’t exist.
“As I look back now, it was the worst of times and the best of times. There was a strange contradiction.”

Mr Price said he saw his role as supporting his daughter Gemma Price, now 34, and granddaughter throughout their ordeal by bringing “smiles and laughter to their lives. I saw myself as a court jester.
“I just wanted to make Sorrelle smile and helping her and my daughter equally through a dreadful time.
“Writing the book was probably my therapy. I didn’t set out with the intention of writing 69,000 words.”
Mr Price lives in north Manchester and Sorrelle and her two sisters and mum live nearby.
The purpose of the book was he explained was threefold.
“It’s to help and inform Sorrelle understand what happened to her and what issues there will be – for example if she wants to become a mum later in life.
“To try and help families who are going through the same thing that we went through.
“And the proceeds from the sale of the book will provide royalties in perpetuity to help cure cancer.”
The book evolved as Mr Price used the services of a proofreader and attempted to find a publisher but noted they’re as “rare as hen’s teeth.” So he decided to publish via Amazon.

His employer, Warrington Borough Council, has been very supportive of the book as has the children’s hospital trust, which approved its publication.
He recalls first meeting the professor Rob Wynn involved in Sorrelle’s care.
The family asked about her chances. He told them: “I don’t deal in percentages- my job is to save your daughter.
“My hope is that someone reads just one sentence and asks a question they’d not thought about and they ask a question about treatment which makes a difference.”
Small Boat in a Big Ocean by Sam Price is available on Amazon.