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Welcome to Katelyn Benson's website! This has been created to keep family and friends up to date with the latest news regarding our brave daughter.

At the age of three, Katelyn was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma Stage 4, a rare childhood cancer for which there is no cure. She was diagnosed on Monday 16th May 2005 and since then has undergone 8 rounds of chemotherapy, a 5 hour tumour resection surgery, further high-dose chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant, radiotherapy and 6 rounds of Accutane (Retinoic Acid). In September 2006, we discovered that Katie had relapsed and so the battle begins again.

Despite the devastating prognosis, we have great faith that our precious daughter will be granted her miracle cure. Thank you for joining us on our rollercoaster journey. Words cannot express the uplifting joy we feel to know we have such a wonderful "team" standing behind us every step of the way. We thank each and every one of you for the endless love, support and prayers.

We are praying for a miracle!!

Children with cancer are like candles in the wind who accept the possibility that they are in danger of being extinguished by a gust of wind from nowhere; and yet, as they flicker and dance to remain alive, their brilliance challenges the darkness and dazzle those of us who watch their light.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Long day

I haven't been able to log onto blogger for quite some time. I am adding updates from this week below this one. Please scroll down to read the events of this week.

Katelyn's platelets were down to the 50s - low! How could we not have noticed? Usually she has a nose bleed when her platelets are so low. The outpatient clinic was heaving today, have never seen anything like it! We ended up spending the better part of 8 hours there for a short platelet transfusion. It was extra bad luck that Katelyn had a bad allergic reaction (she's had these before) and broke out in a nasty, itchy rash. They've added another anti-histamine to the pre-med concoction. Whilst in the clinic we met up with our buddy Matt who's having treatment for Leukaemia. He finishes treatment next week, congratulations Matt!! The O'Neill family have been good to us. The protocol for ALL lasts over 3 years for boys...3 years....can you imagine? I feel we are already dragged down by Katelyn's treatment, its *only* been 18 months and the finishing line is not yet in sight. We have MIBG scan, bone marrow tests and CT scan next week. Please keep those prayers coming our way!!

Posted by Nicole on Wednesday, November 08, 2006