With cheeky smiles and boundless enthusiasm, football-loving Alec and Aden O’Connor from Fort Worth, Texas, are the epitome of identical twins.
“The best thing about being a twin is that we always have each other’s backs,” Alec, aged 11, says.
In 2019, Alec was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a rare and aggressive blood cancer. After three years of treatment, he went into remission, a moment of immense relief for his mother, Rhea Scott.
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However, just months later, his twin brother Aden was diagnosed with the same disease and is currently undergoing chemotherapy, as reported by Daily Mail.
Now closer than ever, twins Alec and Aden are featured in the new documentary “Kids Like Us,” streaming on Sky. The film, made in association with Children With Cancer UK, reports on the poignant, uplifting, and often heartbreaking experiences of children battling cancer, the impact on their loved ones, and the remarkable medical advancements saving lives.
In her first interview about the show, their mother Rhea shares their heartbreaking diagnoses and the twin bond that has helped them through their treatment.
“After Alec’s all clear it was the best feeling ever,” she told Daily Mail. “I was a little upset because he finished his treatment during Covid, so he didn’t get to go to the hospital and ring the bell. But I felt that God had created a miracle for us.
“Eleven months later when Aden was diagnosed with the same cancer I was devastated.
“My first words were, ‘God, I can’t do this again’. ”
In October 2019, the first indication of Alec’s health issues appeared suddenly when he exhibited symptoms that his mother believed were Strep A, including a sore throat, headache, fever, and a fine, pinkish body rash with a sandpapery texture.
“A week later he seemed to get worse, he couldn’t breathe. As I headed out to work he said ‘Mum I’m in so much pain’.
“And I just looked at him and I knew something was wrong.”
After urging doctors to run blood tests and scans, a large mass was discovered in Alec’s chest, pressing on his trachea. In leukemia patients, cancerous cells can cluster around the thymus gland, causing breathing difficulties. These cells can also gather in chest lymph nodes, leading to coughing and wheezing in children.
Rhea said: “Your white blood cell count is normally around 15,000. His was 500,000. His diagnosis started a long two and a half year process of him going through horrible chemo treatments and being sick.
“He also blew up like the Michelin man.”
Each year, approximately 790 people in the UK and 6,550 in the U.S. are diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which has a five-year survival rate of 70%. About a quarter of these cases are T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
This occurs when white blood cells grow uncontrollably in the bone marrow and spread to blood vessels and vital organs, eventually clogging them and impairing body function.
Experts believe that identical twins may be more susceptible to the same diseases due to their shared blood supply in the womb.
Aware of the risks, Rhea asked Alec’s doctors if his twin brother, Aden, could be susceptible to the same illness and was reassured it was very unlikely.
However, in 2023, Aden sustained a head injury during football practice, resulting in headaches and nausea, initially thought to be signs of a concussion.
Within a week, his lymph nodes swelled to the size of golf balls, and part of his stomach bulged out, prompting Rhea to fear the worst and rush him to the hospital.
“It scared me to death,” she said. Once tests were complete, both she and Aden were taken to a separate hospital room.
“As soon as I was told ‘the doctor will be in to talk to you’ I burst out crying. I knew,” she said.
“I was hysterical. I said ‘I can’t go through this s*** again. You don’t know what I’ve been through in the last two years.'”
Aden has faced a more aggressive form of the same disease, contending with complications such as pancreatitis, brain bleeds, and elevated levels of magnesium, sodium, and blood pressure.
His leukemia has “also attacked his liver and his spleen,” Rhea said.
“Alec got it when he was seven, going on eight, while Aden was 10. Alec’s chemo was a lot more easier than Aden’s was,” she added.
“I also think, because when the kids are younger, they’re not aware of death, they think ‘I’m just sick’.
“In Aden’s case, he’s aware, and that’s what made it more difficult for me and for him and having seen what his brother went through. Reliving that has been scary for all of us.”
Alec, who remains cancer-free, also said: “Sometimes Aden is scared something bad is going to happen to him.
“I help by asking him to calm down and take deep breaths.
“I’ve already gone through it — I can tell him what’s going to happen so he can prepare.”
