#TOMIGHTY VIRUS HOW TO#

We’ve called the fund Mighty Isabellah’s Journey because there’s no other word to describe her. A lot of people think of cancer as an adult disease and don’t understand that children are affected as well. I’d also really like to raise awareness, both of childhood cancer in general and the type of cancer Isabellah has. There must be kinder treatments for children like Isabellah, treatments that mean they don’t have to suffer some of the horrible side effects that they do.

#TOMIGHTY VIRUS HOW TO#

They know how to treat it, but there’s still more than can be learnt. We’ve set up this fund as we really want to see more research going on for this particular type of cancer, for the doctors and scientists to know more about it. He’s been living with my dad and though she gets to visit, she can’t wait to be reunited with him fully when her wires are out. Once her treatment is finished, she’s also looking forward to our pet pug, Benson, coming home. She can’t wait to get back to school properly. She missed a lot of nursery after she was diagnosed, but once she finished her intense treatment, she had some time there with her friends which she loved. She’s really happy and we’ve been trying our best to enjoy as many things as we can, though we’ve got to be careful around other children while she still has her Hickman line in.

She’s wild and bubbly, and also very kind and very, very lovely. Isabellah has so much energy and everyone on the ward knows when she’s there! She chases the nurses and throws paper snowballs in the doctor’s office. Not once has she let her cancer bring her down. When she was first diagnosed, we did her bedroom up as we thought she was going to be bedbound, but she’s just proven everybody wrong. She’s been so brave throughout her treatment and done amazingly all along, even the doctors can’t believe how well she’s done. Her maintenance chemotherapy is due to finish in September 2022, with an extra six months a possibility. Instead, Isabellah had laser treatment to burn off the bits that were melting in case she choked, before going on to have nine rounds of intense chemotherapy, followed by six weeks of proton beam therapy in Manchester. With the tumour being where it was in her nasal pharynx, it was in an inoperable position and couldn’t be surgically removed. It was really difficult seeing her like this, but thankfully, she was back to normal pretty soon after her sedation finished. They kept her under sedation for two weeks and she was very out of it. Because of this problem with her breathing, she had to have emergency chemotherapy to shrink the tumour down, which melted off half of the dangling part of the tumour, and caused her to actually cough it out. For her own safety, she was then fitted with a tube to help her breathe, because the tumour was through her nose and dangling down the back of her throat, restricting her from doing so. It looked like she had stopped breathing, and it was absolutely terrifying to see. Firstly, Isabellah developed sleep apnoea, triggered by her tumour. I took her home, but by the next day, the snoring was that bad, I had to stay up all night. I wasn’t happy with that, so we went to A&E in our hometown, where we were told the same. Soon after, she developed bad breath and her beathing became difficult, so my husband Rob and I decided to take her to the GP’s, where she was twice diagnosed with polyps. For the first week and a half there were no problems at all, but after that, Isabellah started snoring, which she’d never done before, and she kept waking up asking to come into our bed. Soon after, we went to Wales for three weeks on holiday. We certainly never thought it could be what it was. She had a bit of a congested nose, which, at first, we thought was hay fever or a cold, or some sort of virus that she’d picked up at nursery. But this all changed when she began to develop symptoms a few weeks prior. Before Isabellah’s diagnosis, she was in nursery and absolutely loving it, while we were enjoying doing things with her during the summer.

Tomighty virus