€300k sought to save 10-year-old Robyn Smyth
As things stand, Robyn Smyth, 10, who suffers from neuroblastoma and who has battled childhood cancer since the age of three, has just a 5% chance of survival.
Although the youngster was declared disease-free for the first time in early 2009, she relapsed less than two years ago when a tumour broke through her jaw bone and the cancer quickly spread to her spine, legs, and pelvis.
Since then Robyn has undergone eight rounds of chemotherapy, along with radiation treatment, and immunotherapy at Crumlin Children’s Hospital.
Her mother Bernadette Dornan, from Whitehall, now faces an anxious wait for scan results to determine if the cancer is in remission.
But she said she has renewed hope after identifying a programme for young relapsed neuroblastoma patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York which her daughter will be eligible for if her scan results are clear.
Encouragingly, 13 of the 15 children who have undergone the year-long treatment programme, which involves seven vaccinations, have remained in remission.
But Bernadette faces a colossal challenge to secure a place for her daughter on the trial, as she has to raise €525,000 to cover the medical fees.
Although she has already raised around €200,000, she still needs to find more than €300,000 in just four weeks to guarantee Robyn’s treatment at the hospital next month.
“I’ve no option but to take Robyn to New York, because her treatment has finished in Ireland and there’s nothing more the doctors can do for her here.”
Bernadette, who also has a three-year-old daughter, Millie with her partner, Leighton Smyth, added: “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but failure isn’t an option for me, because this is about saving my little girl’s life.”
http://www.idonate.ie/1011_robyn--s-life.html
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