Brendan Healy
Canterbury Walk page
Fundraising for The 2Simple Trust - Stella Rogers Appeal
Story
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We are raising money for Stella Rogers. Stella is the daughter of a very close friend of ours - John Rogers. At the age of only 17 months, Stella was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. This is an aggressive form of cancer with a high mortality. John and Alison (Stella's mum) have taken Stella to for potentially life saving treatment in the form of an antibody. The antibody treatment can destroy residual cancer cells and increases Stella’s chance of survival from 20-40% to 60-80%. The cost of the treatment is £250,000 and we are raising money to help pay for this. Please give generously. John is a very old and close friend to us and we have been through a lot together. Each year, as teenagers, a group of us would walk from Upminster to over three and a half days. The walk helped to cement our friendships, created many new friendships and allowed all those taking part to learn a lot about themselves and each other. The “Canterbury Walk” holds very special memories for all of us and many of our other friends. A group of 20 of us are going to walk 3 sections of the walk - 50 miles - over 2 days. Each day we will walk 25 miles (just short of marathon distance). We are hoping to raise a total of £10,000 for the appeal. Please help us to raise money for Stella by giving generously to this appeal. Many thanks from The Canterbury walk for Stella Walkers. More information on Stella’s story can be found below and through the following links: http://www.forstella.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/press-release-feb-10.pdf http://www.forstella.org/?page_id=21
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More Information about Stella:
At just 17 months, Stella was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer known as Neuroblastoma MYC-N amplified (high risk), originating from her adrenal gland. At the time of diagnosis the cancer had grown to a huge size in her belly, which to treat has required 70 days of aggressive chemotherapy; major surgery to remove the primary tumour; a stem cell rescue that wipes out her bone marrow, three weeks of radio therapy and six months of oral chemotherapy.
The treatment is harsh, but it needs to be. Neuroblastoma, a very aggressive cancer that affects children, is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in the under fives. The disease, which can be difficult to spot initially, is triggered by abnormally developing nerve cells in young children.
REVOLUTIONARY THERAPY
Our experience of getting Stella through this brutal regime and trying to maintain a normal family life for her 4-year-old sister has been truly terrible. However, Stella has proved she is a fighter and responded well to the most up-to-date care that the UK offers. But in order not to suffer a relapse – all too common in this type of cancer – it has been necessary to fundraise to obtain an expensive antibody therapy, costing a massive £250,000, not available in the UK.
We know that if Stella receives this treatment her chances of survival will be raised significantly. With this therapy, antibodies are injected into the blood stream and travel around the body attaching to any Neuroblastoma cells that they find. The body’s immune system can then identify the cancer cells and attack and kill them. However, it is necessary for the patient to receive this treatment no more than 100 days after the stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, time was running out; we had only raised about £40,000 of the total amount needed as the deadline loomed.
KEEPING STELLA IN THE USA
It was lucky for us that help was at hand. On Tuesday Feburary 2nd – just a week before the deadline arrived - we found ourselves on our way to the USA to start Stella’s treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The 2simple Trust provided an emergency, interest-free loan for the deposit on £250,000, thus giving us the chance to carry on fundraising throughout Stella’s six month therapy and time to repay the loan and fund the rest of our daughter’s treatment. This has meant that Stella could start the therapy at the point when it was most effective. But there is still a lot of money to raise. So we remain indebted to family and friends for help, whether it’s with financial aid or just your time to organise a fund-raising event. But, with such a large amount to raise, we are also relying on the generosity of strangers. If lots of people gave just a little, we could save our daughter.