Help fund Ava's Stage 4 Neuroblastoma treatment

Ava’s story.

Ava, our cheeky, chatty little girl loves mischief, adventure and playing with her big brother Lucas (5).

We noticed Ava was not her usual self on her third birthday and over the Christmas period that followed. She was lethargic, pale and vomiting. At first we thought she had picked up a virus, but a couple of weeks passed into the new year and instead of getting better, new symptoms were showing. Our very active little girl suddenly refused to walk, complaining of pain in her leg. And bruising started to appear around her eyes despite no injury.

Alarm bells rang and so we took Ava to our GP, who immediately referred her to our local hospital. The doctors initially told us they suspected something called Transient Erythroblastopenia of childhood (TEC), that her blood counts were low because of an earlier virus and that things would resolve on their own. We couldn’t help but feel relieved. But the haematologist reviewing Ava’s blood samples wanted to do further testing to rule out other causes. We were not prepared for what followed.

Ava had her bone marrow sampled and the results showed abnormal cells which could be cancer. A CT scan confirmed our worst fears, Ava had a primary tumour on her back with secondaries on her shoulder, pelvis, hip and shin. We were told that she has Stage 4 High Risk Neuroblastoma, a very aggressive and rare childhood cancer with a poor survival rate. Our whole world collapsed.

More tests were carried out on Ava’s heart, hearing and kidneys before having a central line inserted to start a gruelling induction chemotherapy regime consisting of 7 volatile chemotherapy drugs with horrible side effects. As well as suffering the effects of the chemotherapy, our little princess has also undergone numerous bone marrow procedures, blood transfusions, CT and MRI scans, nuclear MIBG scans, G-CSF injections and stem cell harvest. She has amazed us all with her resilience, keeping her cheeky smile and making us so proud of how she is coping though out it all.

Ava has already been through so much, but she is just at the beginning of her treatment, with surgery, further intensive chemotherapy, stem cell transplant, radiotherapy and immunotherapy still to come.

Her treatment will last at least 18 months.

Even after completing this intensive course of treatment, there is still a very high risk that Ava could relapse and her cancer could come back which is frighteningly common with neuroblastoma, if this happened Ava’s chance of survival would drop drastically.

A new vaccination treatment is being trialled at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. This treatment stops the Neuroblastoma from returning. Unfortunately, it is not currently available in the UK so we are fundraising to be able to take Ava to get this, or other progressive treatments which might be available once her cancer treatment is finished.

The money that we raise will go towards getting Ava the treatment she desperately needs, improving her quality of life and supporting her and her family during this time.

We are not normally people who would ask for help, but as a family we need to know we have done everything we can to give Ava the best chance of beating this. Please help us raise funds, every pound and penny counts. Any funds generously raised which are not required for Ava's treatment will be donated back into Neuroblastoma research to help other children and families in need of help.

Thank you all for your kindness and support, and for sharing Ava’s story.

Scott, Natalie, Lucas and Ava xx