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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.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Christmas festivities

We get to spend Christmas at home, yay!!! Providing all goes to plan, Katie's next round of chemotherapy (TVD this time) will be on 28th December. She tolerated the new chemo combo very well and had hardly any sickness. Her counts are still very low but we've done blood tests every day this week and are seeing a small upward trend. I expect it shall be another quiet Christmas for us, although, a house with 5 Bensons is never exactly very quiet. This time last year we'd just got home post-transplant. Katie has come a long way since then but her struggle is far from over. Praise God she is so much stronger than all of us put together and takes this all in her stride.

It's been busy busy busy for all of us inbetween the hospital visits and I even braved the shops a few times. Josh finishes school this week, and Jason is taking 2 weeks off work. Our not-so-little Sophie is holding her head steady. She's so strong, hold her upwards on your lap and she'll kick you hard and push up. They're growing each and every day.

Posted by Nicole on Saturday, December 16, 2006