Ema Cutajar was a year old when her mother noticed a white mark on the roof of the child’s mouth that looked like clotted milk. 

But, within days, the mark had grown into a bulge and an MRI scan confirmed it was a cancerous tumour on the right side of her face that was growing into her mouth. 

“My life was put on pause,” her mother Greta Buhagiar recalls of that shocking December 2021 diagnosis.

“My focus was to make sure we did what we could to ensure Ema is fine. I closed myself in and did not want to speak much about it.”

But now Greta is sharing the experience to help raise funds for Puttinu Cares, a charity that supports children and adults with cancer. 

In the early stages, Ema could not eat and slept with her mouth open so had to be treated with steroids to stop the mass from growing. 

"But now Greta is sharing the experience to help raise funds for Puttinu Cares, a charity that supports children and adults with cancer"

That was the beginning of treatment that is still ongoing. Ema started chemotherapy which was administered every three weeks through a Hickman line – a central venous catheter used for the administration of chemotherapy or other medications. 

Her parents moved into the hospital’s Rainbow Ward and, for the first two weeks, sent their eldest daughter, Hayley, to live with her grandparents. 

“It was during the coronavirus pandemic so we could not move,” he said. 

“We had to stay in a confined space, but Puttinu gave us everything we needed,” she says. Ema started treatment under the care of Dr Victor Calvagna but, a few days later, he was involved in a fatal accident.

In April 2022, Ema was sent to Germany’s Heidelberg University for two months of radiotherapy and the Puttinu Cares Foundation supported the family to find an apartment to rent to be nearby.  

During her stay there Ema was treated five times a week and, each time, she had to be sedated. As well as undergoing proton therapy, a type of radiation therapy to treat cancer, she continued with her chemotherapy.

An MRI eventually showed that the tumour had gone and the now three-year-old is going through her final stages of chemotherapy. 

“When something like this happens, you think it is very rare,” says Greta. “But when you step into the hospital ward you realise there are a number of people like you. The ward feels like one family. You realise you are not alone. There are people there to help give you the courage you need, and you try to do the same for them,” she says. 

Now Ema, who joined her mother for this interview, wears a feeding tube leading into her nose. It doesn’t stop her climbing on to her mother’s shoulders and jumping down on to the sofa. 

“She was always a happy baby,” says Greta. “She never tried to remove the feeding tube. She needs it to make sure that she is getting the nutrition she needs to keep getting stronger and keep on recovering.” 

Around 60 to 90 Maltese patients need to travel to the UK for treatment every month. 

Last year Puttinu, with the help of the public, raised funds to purchase a building in central London, to host families while in the UK for treatment. The next challenge is furnishing the apartments and the construction of another floor. 

The public can donate during a fundraising marathon which will be aired live on TVM and other channels on Good Friday, April 7, from 9am to 3pm, and from 9pm to midnight.

For more information about how to help visit puttinucares.org.