Abbey's Florida Expedition

As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

This is a call out to the Wellers Hill Community to help one of our brightest stars make some lemonade on her quest to beat the unfortunate challenge that has been sent her way.

During the middle of 2023, the doctors at Qld Children's Hospital made the unfortunate discovery that Abbey has a Base of Skull Chordoma which is a pretty rare tumour that occurs in bone at the base of the skull (near the top of the spine). In October last year, she had surgery to remove the tumour, which was highly successful and she has recovered well. However she needs radiation treatment to treat any remaining tumour cells that the surgery didn’t remove. Her medical team investigated the best options for this treatment and decided that a particular type of radiation treatment called Proton Beam Therapy is the best option for her. This decision came with a catch…………….it is not available in Australia and would have to be administered in the United States.

So on Tuesday 5 March, Abbey sets off for the US to undergo this critical medical treatment that will hopefully see her back to 100% fit later this year and ready for the commencement of swim club Sept 2024. Unfortunately, any treatment of this nature comes with significant cost and therefore we are asking for any donations that the community can spare to assist Abbey and her family to lessen the financial burden to allow them to focus on the big job at hand, which is fighting the tumour.

For those of you who don't know Abbey, she commenced at Wellers Hill State School in 2016 and joined the Water Ratz Swim Club immediately (following in her older sisters footsteps). She has been a regular attendee at swim club for the last 8 years and can easily be spotted on the pool deck with a massive smile on her face (except after butterfly). Her superwoman mum (Nicole) is currently the president of the WHSS P&C and probably has spent more time volunteering for the school and swim club than most of us have spent at work during the last 10 years. So now is our chance to repay a family that has given so much to the community over such a long period.

Any funds raised will be going directly towards supporting Abbey and her family while she undergoes this treatment so lets rally behind one of our own and give her the best chance possible to make that lemonade!