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Bianca and Ronaldo Rossouw were ecstatic in April 2020 when their baby girl, Liané, was born. She was healthy and everything seemed perfect but little did they know that in less than 10 months, everything would change.
After Liané lost movement in her legs, she was diagnosed with cancer and her treatment triggered several complications.
Bianca (26) shares her daughter’s story with YOU.
“When Liané was born in April 2020, everything was fine with her. Even during my pregnancy, I had no complications. But in November 2020, at the pandemic's peak, we noticed that our baby girl was struggling to move her legs.
We immediately rushed her to the hospital and they found a tumour in her chest which doctors at first thought was pneumonia. But it was eventually confirmed as cancer. In December of the same year, she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma.
Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that starts in early nerve cells called neuroblasts. Usually, these immature cells grow into working nerve cells but in patients with neuroblastoma they grow uncontrollably and become cancer cells that form a solid tumour.
Liané was due to start her chemotherapy on 19 December but that morning she stopped breathing. She was resuscitated, rushed to the paediatric ICU and was on a ventilator for over a week.
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The resuscitation caused extensive brain damage and resulted in her losing her vision. It also turned out that the tumour was pressing against her spine, causing the nerves in that area to die. They would never regrow, meaning Liané would never walk.
After the resuscitation, she completed four rounds of intensive chemotherapy but while it shrank the tumour a lot, it didn't remove it entirely.
After six more rounds of less invasive chemotherapy, the tumour was no longer visible when she had a scan in October 2021. Doctors confirmed that Liané was in remission.
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Although she's been cancer-free ever since, there have been many other problems.
She lost her ability to see, walk, communicate and feed herself. She now has a feeding tube in her tummy. She has also also been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and has epilepsy, for which she needs to take medication daily.
We are now pinning our hopes on stem cell therapy and brain laser therapy to repair some of this damage.
Stem cell therapy will possibly give her the chance to see, walk, talk or even feed herself. And the brain laser therapy will hopefully restore the parts of her brain that are damaged.
Although our original plan was to go to India for treatment, we have discovered a local doctor who has achieved promising results with stem cell therapy and brain laser therapy.
Liané has been through so much in her little life that we are committed to giving her this chance for a better future.
Each session will cost us R50 000. Unfortunately, medical aid doesn't cover even a bit of the cost so we have been holding fundraisers and asking for donations via BackaBuddy to be able to afford this treatment.
As difficult as our lives have been over the past three years, we are grateful for the support we have received.
I hope our story will serve as a reminder to other families with sick children that there's no shame in speaking up and asking for help.”
EXTRA SOURCE: BACKABUDDY.COM
