A repost from Mel Goodsell...Please give this little girl something to smile about

I read the below post on Mel Goodsell's blog over the weekend and have not been able to stop thinking about this little girl so I wanted to share the story. I'm going to put together a little package for her today.  I think I am going to send her some special hand made things.  I'll share when I'm done.

Stickers for Emma - can you help?

I'd like you to meet the very beautiful Emma:


Emma is eleven years old (a year older than my Bella) and loves Blythe dolls, stickers, cooking, writing to her penpals, collecting stickers and everything else that little girls love to do. She has also recently started undergoing chemotherapy for a growing tumour in her face/neck/head.


As a Mum, when I stumbled upon this news on her Mum's blog recently it just broke my heart. I've had Emma constantly in my thoughts and started to think about ways that we could make the upcoming weeks/months more fun and enjoyable for Emma. When Bella and I talked about sending Emma a care package, I suddenly had a light bulb moment and emailed Emma's Mum (Leanne) to ask if we could do something special together for Emma.


I have quite a big readership now on my little old blog, so I'm going to ask all of you a very big favour. Would you be able to send Emma a get well card (or postcard) and be able to include a sheet of stickers inside for her sticker collection? Or even just some stickers in an envelope? Could you do that for Emma, to brighten her day?

Here are Emma's details:


Miss Emma Love
PO Box 2849
Burleigh Waters, QLD, 4220
Australia

Also, if you could possibly tweet, facebook, tell your friends or blog this for Emma, that would be so lovely. I really want to spread the word and try to fill Emma's mail box to the brim with stickers! Please, can you help?!


In a couple of weeks I'm also going to join Emma and her Mum in making bandanas for the hospital (see below), but I'll post more details about that later on, just incase you'd like to join in and make some too.


I'll hand you over to Leanne now, for Emma's story. You might need your tissues handy, I did.


Here is Emma's story (told by her lovely Mum, Leanne):

In July 2010 our 10 year old daughter was diagnosed with a tumour in her face/neck/head. This is not the sort of news any parent needs to hear.


Emma went in for surgery to remove the tumour on the 9th of September and after a mammoth 10 hours we finally got to see her. The surgeons were hopeful that they had managed to remove 99% of it unfortunately it had wrapped itself around the carotid artery so they could not get it all. They did however tell us that it was a possibility that it would not grow anymore and just lay dormant. This was definitely our wish.....


She had her next MRI scheduled for beginning of November which would show us if it had grown. In November we had her back to the hospital as her jaw was not healing where they had broken it so she then went back under to have the maxillofacial surgeons repair it again. Surgery was successful and we were home two days later (minus a few teeth and a little less jaw bone) the teeth and jaw will be fixed further down the track.


On the 21st of December Emma complained of a lump appearing in her temple. Both Stuart and I were hopeful that it was just a haematoma or something similar but deep down I think we both knew what it was. Emma went in for a biopsy the following day.

Results would not be available until after Christmas so at least we could get through Christmas in denial and thinking all is ok.


It is a tumour again....... It has grown back to 70% of its original size within 6 weeks. They are not going to operate this time as they would prefer to see if chemotherapy would work. She was due for her first treatment on January 5th, just one day after her 11th birthday.


The treatment had been going well and Emma did not suffer any major side effects apart from the odd feeling of nausea. She had 8 weeks of chemo when she noticed a lump in her cheek. Yep you guessed it, here we go again! They took another MRI and confirmed that the tumour had now moved down into her cheek, which meant that the current chemo was not working. On the 7th of this month Emma was admitted to the Royal Children’s Hospital where she underwent a stronger dose of chemo. This one is given to her once a day for 4 days per month and will last for a total of 5 months. Both of the chemicals that she will be receiving list hair loss as the most common side effect. She has started to lose a tiny bit and has already picked out the wig that she wants.


She is a tough little girl and is hoping that if we all get together we can make heaps of beanies and or bandanas, that we can donate to the Hospital. They do have a few but they are very old fashioned and not very appealing to children. Emma wants to see fun bright colourful funky ones for the children to pick from.

We managed to get a big smile from her this week as she finally got her first Blythe Doll. And so the addiction has begun..............

Sorry, the pictures did not copy, so go to Melissa Goodsell's blog to see the pictures that go with the story.