Save Klara: Help Fight Stage 4 Neuroblastoma

Just a month and a half ago our daughter, Klara, was running carefree on the beach. Our happy, little girl, our treasure. We had no idea that in a moment, we’d be faced with a tragedy that would destroy our entire world. Klara just recently turned two years old. There were no signs that an 11 centimeter tumor, the size of a grapefruit, was growing inside her, enveloping nearly her entire kidney.

Thursday night, we returned home from our vacation and on Sunday night, our biggest nightmare began. While putting Klara to bed, I felt something hard on the left side of her stomach. At that moment, I told my husband and we immediately took her to the emergency room. We were transferred to the pediatric department, where Klara had a sonogram done, which showed a tumor on her kidneys. “What tumor!? It’s impossible since she has not had any symptoms up until now.” It was hard for us to understand what was happening. We were very quickly sent to a children’s hospital to the oncology department.

Once we were there, everything was confirmed — Klara had a tumor, which was surrounding her entire kidney. Our world stopped; we couldn’t believe that in such a little body, something was growing that could take her away from us.

In the following days, more testing was done under anesthesia, and we received even worse news. Diagnosis: STAGE 4 NEUROBLASTOMA. This is an aggressive pediatric cancer and it has already metastasized to her bone marrow, femur, tibia, skull, and between the vertebrae of her spine.

After an intensive week of testing, our baby daughter stopped walking, stopped eating, and her speech was slurred. We, Klara’s parents, have been through hell and back waiting to start chemotherapy, watching our daughter in such a weak and helpless state.

We know that Klara will have to go through very intense and exhausting treatment. Right now, Klara has finished her fourth round of chemotherapy. We still have another four rounds ahead of us, and that is not the end yet. If the tumor responds to the chemotherapy, Klara will undergo an operation to remove the tumor, a bone marrow transplant, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy.

This long and difficult road does not give us certainty that the cancer will not return. Klara’s case is extremely severe. Once she finishes her treatments and goes into remission, we have to partake in further preventative treatment in NYC. Without this preventive treatment, there is a ~50% that the neuroblastoma can return. This is the only option available that can protect our daughter from relapse. The cost of diagnostics, treatment, and maintenance will amount to approximately $600,000 USD.

We are not in a place where we would be able to organize this amount of money on our own and we never will be. This is an astronomical amount. This is why we are asking for your help — we must save Klara. Her family misses her at home and is waiting for her return. Her place is not in a hospital, where she has spent the last seven weeks.

Klara’s life has just started. She is just a toddler but we can see that she understands that something terrible is happening. We see the fear and sadness in her eyes. In one moment, our lives turned upside down. We can’t even fathom the idea of losing our precious, little daughter, Klara.

We are asking for help, we cannot do it alone. If you are not able to donate financially, please help by sharing!

Sylvia and Michael, Klara’s parents