- L
- K
Hi there! I’m Sarah, Riley’s Mom. Riley is 5 years old, and is unfortunately fighting Cancer.
June 19, 2024, the day our lives changed forever. After intermittent unexplainable fevers and fatigue, it was time to push for answers. I brought Riley to Guelph General Hospital Emerg after being told to ‘wait and see’ by the doctor on call at our doctors office. I didn’t feel right about this, I knew something was wrong, but this was not at all what we expected. I don’t think anybody does, and something impossible to plan for. I’ll never forget being pulled aside into the room, “we believe there is something very serious with Riley. Riley’s blood work shows she has acute leukaemia ”.
We were ambulanced down to McMaster Children’s Hospital where after more tests, they confirmed Riley has B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (A-LL). This is the most common type of leukemia and the prognosis is good, but the battle is very long, estimated almost 3 years.
We are coming up on 1 year of treatment, and have entered the ‘maintenance’ phase. Which should be ‘easy’ in comparison to the absolute hell we have all been through leading up to this point. But recently it’s done a complete 180, just as I’ve gone back to work and we as a family adjusted to what felt ‘normal’.
The road to being done this battle is still so long, and nobody anticipated this shift in Riley’s blood counts and general well-being. We are all scared, and just want this nightmare to be successfully over.
We are so blessed, as so many have helped us in many ways. Especially in the beginning when I suddenly had to stop working to take Care of Riley, and we tried to keep life as normal as we could for her big sister Robyn. We are so grateful and will never be able to return the favours.
We still receive an overwhelming number of messages from people asking how they can help, including asking for a Go Fund me link, so that’s why we’re here, despite it feeling uncomfortable to put this out there. We aren’t the ones to ask for help, ever, rather the first to jump in and offer it.
Any funds raised will be used to for gas and maintenance of my car so I can keep going from Waterloo to Hamilton for Riley’s treatment, meals for days we end up there longer than planned or god forbid we are admitted again, and life in general as nothing can prepare you for the added expenses of caring for a child with cancer.
Thank you for being here for us, we appreciate and love you all so much.
If you wish to follow along on Riley’s journey, i post updates frequently on my personal Instagram page linked here:
-The Miskiewicz Family