Father explains why he shared photo of his four-year-old girl in agony before she died of cancer

Jessica Whelan died of neuroblastoma in November 2016. Now, her father is raising awareness of childhood cancer

'No family should have to go through this hell' (Facebook: Jessica Whelan - A fight against Neuroblastoma)

Her head thrown back in agony, a tube snaking up her nose to keep her fed, and her veins visible like black spiderwebs beneath her paper-thin skin. It’s this startling image of four-year-old Jessica Whelan in the grip of agony weeks before she died of cancer that spread online last year.

It’s a state that no parent wants to see their child in, but Andy Whelan - Jessica’s father - chose to release this heartbreaking image on Facebook to raise awareness of the horrors of cancer.

Initially, Whelan, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancahsire, took up photography to distract himself when he felt particularly helpless about his daughter’s diagnosis with stage four neuroblastoma at the age of three.

“I was able to utilise photography when I needed to get away and clear my head and it was something that I could study through the use of books during the long hospital stays,” he tells The Independent.

“At first the pictures were to show her, in later life, what she had been through but this changed as the disease spread,” he adds. “The majority of the photos I got were of good and happy times, visual reminders of her joyful spirit and cheeky nature that would last a lifetime.”

Now, Whelan is working with the World Child Cancer charity on his first public photo series since Jessica's death in November 2016, to capture children in the clothing of different professions. He hopes the project called The Gift of Growing Up will highlight how cancer claims the life of a child every three minutes in the developing world, due to a lack of access to medical treatment.

An image of Jessica Whelan taken by her father (Facebook/Andrew Whelan)

Each year, 300,000 children are diagnosed with cancer across the world. But a child with cancer in high-income countries has an 80 per cent chance of survival. In the low-income world, this drops to 10 per cent in some cases.

"When I was sent the information regarding the lack of treatment and or funding for children in developing countries I was taken back to the pain that Jessica suffered and the helplessness I felt as a parent watching her endure this illness.

"Some of the treatments we take for granted in the UK are just not available to children in developing countries due to funding and sadly these children and families are offered no hope."

A year ago, when he published the image of Jessica in agony, he couldn’t have known the reach it would have. How did he decide to release it?

“The picture of Jessica in pain was not originally taken to be published,” he recalls. “It was taken for our benefit so that as time passed we could look back and see that our decision to not try and prolong her life, at detriment to her, was the right one and remind us of the pain she had endured as part of this hellish illness.”

“Upon reviewing the picture I had taken I realised the power of the photo and decided to publish it on Jessica’s Facebook page to show her followers the true face of this illness, the face that we had become more and more accustomed to seeing in those final months.

“Even then, the picture held emotions strong to us because of the content but I never contemplated the emotional response it would receive from people who in essence were strangers to Jessica.”

The family were quickly flooded with messages of support.

“Some of these messages were received from people who had endured similar as a family and were thankful of us showing this side of an illness that is often not shown," says Whelan. "The response that the picture received showed me the power of the picture and the effect that a picture can have.”

Whelan is just one of many parents whose lives have been devastated by cancer, but he hopes the profile afforded him by his image of Jessica will enable him to help voiceless families.

A note from Jessica's family left on her funeral flowers (YouTube)

“I am not in a position of being someone who can find new treatments or even a cure but if my photography can in some way help highlight the extent of paediatric cancer then that is something I can offer.”

To donate to World Child Cancer's Stop the Childhood Cancer Clock campaign, text GROW35 £3 to 70070. Until 18 December 2017, every pound donated will be doubled by the UK Government as part of its UK Aid Match Scheme.