5 years ....................

Today marks five years since Ellen was diagnosed with cancer. Since that day she has had multiple surgeries, numerous chemotherapies, 23 rounds of radiotherapy, 6 hickman lines and a porta cath, a stem cell transplant (requiring six weeks in complete isolation and nearly proving fatal!) and, five months of a novel immunotherapy (ie she was the first child in the UK to have it!). This was followed by a SECOND cancer diagnosis - secondary AML. She had three further rounds of chemotherapy, during which she nearly died from neutropenic sepsis, and then a donor bone marrow transplant from her little brother - not a mean feet on its own, requiring three months in complete isolation. Recently she has been diagnosed with portal hypertension from which she has had two catastrophic gastrointestinal bleeds. Quite an eventful five years by any standards. Throughout all this Ellen has remained in the most part happy and enjoyed life. Today she cycled to the water park in Center Parcs, went on the slide on her own, down the rapids with some help and thoroughly enjoyed herself. More of a miracle is that she is coping well at school, she has lots of friends and to-date remains pretty unaware of the battles she has faced. We are so very proud of her.