Rebecca's wish for Isabella

Please take 5 mins to read our story.

We are very proud parents to 3 Beautiful girls, Rebecca 6 years old, Isabella 2 years old and Sophia 11 months. We live with grandma in her house in plumstead, royal borough of Greenwich. London.

This is Isabella's story...........
When Isabella was 9 months old we was worried about Isabella as she was not sitting up, the doctors told us to take her home and wait for her to develop.
When Isabella was 10 months old she still wasn’t sitting up and had no balance as any mother knows this is not right at at this age it really is a worry so after another visit to the doctors she was referred to the royal London hospital to see if she had clicky hip. Isabella passed all these tests and x-rays showed nothing.
So after going straight back to the doctors she was then referred to Kings college hospital. After ringing every day we finally got an appointment, think they had had enough of the phone calls by then.
After 3 months we see a paediatrician and she thought from Isabella’s signs she had cerebral palsy, she we had to wait for another appointment for a brain scan.
On the 16th Dec 2011 we went for Isabella’s mri scan to be told while she was still under so they could take more pictures that they had found a very large brain tumour, 7cm big. This was the Friday
we was told that we would have to take her in the following Wednesday for them to operate on Thursday. Also being told we would not be home for xmas. We then went home and had xmas with all the family on the sunday, had xmas really come early???
After waiting over 8 hours for Isabella to come back from brain surgery we was told we still couldn’t see her while they made her stable. After a long day and so many hours we finally got to see our princess.
Then to be told they couldn’t remove it all as it had wrapped itself around one of the main blood vessels in the brain and we would have lost her if they had tried. We were just so grateful that they had looked after our princess and brought her back to us a life.
We was in kings for 9 days while Isabella recovered and while we waited the results of what sort of tumour it was.
On the 30th December we was told the tumour was cancerous and would need to meet the dr from the royal marsden he was coming the next day.
After meeting her cancer doctor the first thing he told us was that most children with this tumour do not survive, i added that was until he had meet mine, she was given 60 % chance of beating it, but 50% chance of it coming back at a later date once it was beaten. Only 1 in every 900,000 children get this, we was told she had a high grade tumour, which meant it grows fast. And her treatment plan. 12 months of chemo followed by more brain surgery, they were hoping with chemo it would shrink the tumour back from the blood vessel.
in January 2012 Isabella had to have a shunt and drain fitted which she would have for life because the tumour had cause damage to the fluid chamber and block it, which means the brain fluid cannot drain itself and collects, hence the bump that comes up and down on the side of her head.
this in turn put the chemo treatment off till a later date.
In February after a short illness Isabella was fitted with a portacath which is a line that runs straight to the heart, for blood to be drawn or for chemo and medication to be given.
In Febuary after a lot of worry and some complications we started her chemo treatment at the royal marsden in sutton, we have 6 different types of chemo, every 3 weeks.
we was also told of some of the size effects these including kidney damage, hearing loss, hair loss sickness weight loss and the treatment Isabella is having can cause leukaemia later in life. There is more but we can’t be worrying about all of them at once.
When we got to the ward at the royal marsden Isabella was the youngest they don’t normally have children of her ages and this tells as they have a brilliant play room there but no toys for Isabella’s age so we now take lots and lots of her own.

Isabella has been so brave battling through having chemo, being separated from family days sometimes weeks at a time.

The worst case was mother’s day 2012, Sophia only being 5 days old, Isabella was rushed to hospital by ambulance because she was fitting. The paramedic had to take over Isabella’s breathing on the way. The managed to stabilise Isabella and she spent the next 7 days in king’s college hospital getting better all caused by a common viral infection. These are very common in children suffering with cancer but what a scary time for everyone in the family including Rebecca who was 5 at the time watching from the side lines. The siblings often are forgotten when a family has a sick child, so we try and keep our days normal building lots of memories of fun times. Our family enjoy spending time together laughing and having fun.

On the !4^th January 2013 Isabella completed her 12 months of chemo. The last mri scan showed that the chemo has only worked to the extent of keeping the tumour stable and had not done what the doctors at kings or the royal Marsden has planned would happen. In turn this means the tumour is still in-operable.

On Monday 11^th February we was given 3 options of which way to go next, all 3 options being life threatening to Isabella and all treatment plans ending in radiotherapy. Isabella’s chances of survival have now gone down to 50%.

Firstly we have to get Isabella to 3 years old to be able to have radiotherapy as the brain is not fully developed until then.

If Isabella has the standard radiotherapy in the uk this will leave her with very poor quality of life effecting her long and short term memory leaving her with none, she will not have any iq meaning she will never become an independent adult. It will also affect her speech her motor skills and mobility.

We have chosen to try oral chemo which is not intense like she was having before, the doctors have warned us that the tumour is likely to grow, but as parents we feel it’s the best option we have at giving Isabella time. Time to get to 3 years old for proton beam treatment.

Isabella has just learnt to walk at the age of 28 months. But treatment will take this away from her.

We have found Proton beam therapy is available in the United States but it would come at a cost which we would have to cover, the cost being £150,000. Isabella does not qualify for NHS funding.

As a family we are trying to fund raise to raise the amount needed to give our little girl some quality of live.

We have had a Christmas ball, valentines disco. We have a funday, photo shoots, jumble sales and a ladies night all planned but really need some help.

If there is anything you can do to help raise some funds towards Isabella’s treatment we would be very grateful. Or if you have anything you could donate towards raffles we hold at each and every event as we found these great money makers to help boost funds then please get in touch with us.

Whilst we try to raise money we are giving 20% of what is raised to The Leah Wilby foundation, charity number 1146160, who help familys with children with cancer.

Isabella’s story can be found on Facebook Isabella Coomber (Isabella’s story).  All donations big or small really do help get us a step closer to Isabella’s much needed treatment in the U.S.A.

Thank you for taking the time to read our daughter story