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By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Tuesday, 14 October 2008

TUI SONG: Tui McLeod sang to raise money for the Child Cancer Foundation.

Child cancer donors have been drawn to open their wallets by a North Shore songbird.

Birkdale six-year-old Tui McLeod was diagnosed with a large tumour on her brain stem in May 2007 after waking up paralysed on her right side.

Surgery and long-running chemotherapy did not stop her giving her all to raise cash for the Child Cancer Foundation this month.

She sang her favourite tunes from Phantom of the Opera and interviewed celebrities at the foundation’s Cash Cube for Kids event.

Mum Deborah Lennon says cancer has not taken away Tui’s love of life or desire to be in the spotlight.

She wants to become an ambassador for the Child Cancer Foundation and she raises money for the foundation because it helped and supported her through her cancer journey.

"They’ve helped relieve the financial burdens and the emotional stress. It has just taken that pressure off," says Ms Lennon.

"There’s so many families out there that need support, they need this money."

A group of AUT students designed the Cash Cube for Kids event, which raised about $3500 for child cancer. They designed a brightly coloured cube to which people were encouraged to stick their donations.

Student Melanie Michels of Torbay says: "It was really rewarding interacting with the kids and raising money for such a good cause. It was also amazing to see how generous Aucklanders really are."

Cancer children coming home

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By RUTH HILL - The Dominion Post | Thursday, 16 October 2008

KENT BLECHYNDEN/The Dominion Post

SETTLING IN: Wellington's new child cancer specialists Mwe Mwe Chao and her husband, Christian Kratz, don't have any patients yet. They toured the paediatric ward and met Victoria Jacobs, 7, who has rheumatoid arthritis.

There was no obvious upside when Wellington's two child cancer specialists quit.

But it did create a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for one medical couple and Wellington now has two world-class clinicians.

United States-born specialist Mwe Mwe Chao said she and her husband, Christian Kratz, arrived on Sunday.

They worked together at the University of Freiberg Hospital in Germany and were in the unusual position of "looking for the same job in the same place".

"We thought it [New Zealand] would be a wonderful place to raise our family." The couple have a 21-month-old daughter, Matilda.

Dr Kratz said they were also excited at the prospect of rebuilding the service.

"All the staff are very motivated and there's a lot of positive energy."

With the resignation of Liz Hesketh in July last year, the unit - one of three child cancer centres in the country - was forced to send patients to Auckland or Christchurch.

The last remaining specialist, Anne Mitchell, stepped down in January.

Dr Chao said there were big challenges ahead.

"Part of the problem is New Zealand is small and paediatric oncology - fortunately - is also small, and that presents problems for practising physicians ...

"But I think the health board has done a really good job of organising everything, there's strong commitment from staff and everyone is ready to go."

Dr Kratz also plans to continue his world-leading research into the genetic origins of cancer.

The health board hopes to recruit a third specialist.

The couple hope all Wellington families will be home by the end of November.

Johnsonville mother Shanell Christian, whose daughter Kyah was diagnosed with cancer 15 months ago, said she was relieved that other families would not go through the same trauma her family had suffered. They were sent to Christchurch less than 24 hours after Kyah was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the adrenal glands.

She endured major surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy and weeks apart from her father, Jason Milne, and two brothers.

The family learned last month the cancer had returned and Kyah was unlikely to see her third birthday on November 3.

"We're just enjoying the days we have left with her," Ms Christian said.

"It's too late for us, but I'm so glad that other families will not have to go through the trauma we suffered.

"When you have a sick kid, you don't want to have to leave home."

Wellington's child cancer unit up and running again

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New 7:56AM Thursday Oct 16, 2008

The arrival in Wellington this week of two paediatric oncologists means that the capital's child cancer patients can now be treated much closer to home.

United States-born specialist Mwe Mwe Chao and her husband, Christian Kratz, fill the void created by the resignation of Liz Hesketh in July last year and Anne Mitchell in January.

Their departures forced the unit - one of three child cancer centres in the country - to send patients to Auckland or Christchurch, splitting families at a traumatic time in their lives.

It is now hoped all Wellington families affected by child cancer will be home for treatment by the end of November.

The two world-class clinicians, who have come from Germany's University of Freiberg Hospital, were in the unusual position of "looking for the same job in the same place".

"We thought it (New Zealand) would be a wonderful place to raise our family," they told The Dominion Post.

Dr Kratz said they were also excited at the prospect of rebuilding the service.

"All the staff are very motivated and there's a lot of positive energy."

Dr Kratz also plans to continue his world-leading research into the genetic origins of cancer.

The health board still hopes to recruit a third specialist.

- NZPA

Bittersweet birthday for cancer tot

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The final celebration

KRISTIAN SOUTH - Sunday News | Sunday, 12 October 2008

TEARS flowed as "birthday" cheers rang out yesterday for New Zealand's bravest little girl, Kyah Milne.

It was hoped Kyah, two, would be the face of a child cancer campaign after it seemed she had gone into remission from a heart-wrenching battle with deadly neuroblastoma.

But the emotional rollercoaster of the Wellington tot's short life took a tragic twist as the disease came raging back last month.

Realising they had just days left with their precious daughter, Kyah's dad Jason Milne and mum Shanell Christian brought forward her third birthday to yesterday.

The couple was determined the event would be a celebration of Kyah's heroic life rather than a sad commemoration.

"We knew she wouldn't make it to see her third birthday, so we decided to bring it forward," Shanell told Sunday News.

"We were planning to have it next weekend but we don't think she'll even hold on for that long.

"People have come from all around the country to see Kyah," said Shanell.

"This is more about everybody having a chance to say goodbye.

"It's more about celebrating her life than her birthday," she said.

Shanell shared her daughter's highs and lows in an internet blog, titled Kyah's Journey.

It attracted hundreds of hits a day as supporters sought to be updated on the little girl's struggle with neuroblastoma a rare cancer of the adrenal glands mainly affecting children under five.

Those wellwishers united to help transform Kyah's Johnsonville home into a carnival yesterday complete with a petting zoo, a bouncy castle, professional face painters and a clown.

"We were thinking we would do something big for her, but like family big. Now we've got people from all around New Zealand, some of whom we've never met face-to-face, coming to celebrate Kyah's life," Shanell said.

"We only had five days to organise it and I wrote about that on my blog and before we knew it were were getting so many offers for so many people."

A bittersweet presence at the party was a string of beads, each one representing a procedure Kyah has been through.

She has endured major surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Every day she needs several doses of morphine to keep the pain at bay.

Jason and Shanell have shared their daughter's rollercoaster ride since she was diagnosed with cancer 15 months ago.

Less than a month ago, they believed Kyah was just weeks away from being in remission. But on September 16, they were were given the devastating news the cancer had returned terminally.

"We don't see it as losing Kyah," Shanell said. "We see that through all her treatments and therapy we had seven fantastic months with our baby girl. She was fantastic, she loved being the centre of attention.

"We even applied for her to be the face of next year's child cancer campaign. She was just a normal happy little girl for eight months and that is a time that we will always be able to cherish."

While the family are preparing to say goodbye to little Kyah, they are also working hard to ensure her brief but blazing life will create goodness and kindness for others.

They are fundraising for the Child Cancer Foundation and Ronald McDonald House.

"When Kyah was in hospital in Christchurch I don't think we could have survived without that network," Jason said.

"We almost didn't want to leave, because it was like leaving a part of your family. We could never do enough to say thank you."

TradeMe is running a continuous auction on behalf of Kyah's family, where buyers bid for the right to sign their username on a T-shirt before putting it back up for auction. They are hoping the scheme will raise $5000 for CCF.

And Kyah's big brothers Kaleb, 12, and Jordan, seven, have been growing their hair long so they can shave it off as a fundraiser.

"Last year I managed to raise $750," Kaleb said.

If you would like to make a donation please visit www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/kyahsjourney.

kyahsjourney.livejournal.com

Why I quit - Cancer Doctor

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By RUTH HILL - The Dominion Post | Monday, 01 September 2008

Supplied

WHY: Child cancer specialist Dr Liz Hesketh quit Wellington Hospital last year because she felt inadequate resourcing was putting patients at risk.

A highly regarded child cancer specialist who quit Wellington Hospital last year says she walked away because she felt inadequate resourcing was putting patients at risk.

Speaking publicly for the first time since leaving last July, Liz Hesketh said she had been forced to work with "continually dwindling resources and a unit moving towards unsafe clinical practice".

Dr Hesketh's departure forced the hospital's oncology unit to close its doors to new patients because it could no longer guarantee clinical safety. That resulted in children being sent to other clinics in Auckland and Christchurch.

Dr Hesketh was followed by colleague Anne Mitchell, who left in January. Since then a paediatrician has been running the service with support from Christchurch. Two new oncologists, Christian Kratz and Mwe Mwe Chao, arrive from Germany on October 12.

Dr Hesketh said the decision to quit Wellington was "very hard" and praised her former workmates at the hospital. But she said that, without adequate resources, they struggled to provide a first-world standard of care.

The number of "reportable events" involving child cancer patients at Wellington Hospital more than doubled in the first half of last year as the unit struggled with the rash of resignations.

Figures record 36 such events - which included administrative delays, staffing problems and medication errors or "near misses" - between April and June. In the first three months of the year there were 14. None had resulted in serious harm to patients.

Girls' eggs taken as safeguard

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By RUTH HILL and ANNA CHALMERS - The Dominion Post | Friday, 25 July 2008

Some parents of child cancer sufferers are having their little girls' eggs frozen to give them the chance of having their own babies one day.

However, doctors say the procedure is still experimental and there are ethical issues to resolve before it becomes standard practice.

Bioethics expert Gareth Jones, a spokesman for the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, which this week recommended allowing frozen eggs to be used in fertility treatment, said there was nothing in law to stop parents pursuing this option.

Ethics committees faced growing pressure from parents wanting their daughters' eggs or ovarian tissue removed before cancer treatment, he said.

"However, any application would still have to be considered by an ethics committee - with young children, there is the issue of informed consent, among other things."

Child cancer specialist Scott MacFarlane said he knew of two families who had gone to Australia to have the procedure in order to "circumvent the torturous ethics committee process" in New Zealand.

Another pre-pubescent girl had surgery in Christchurch to harvest ovarian tissue after clearance by the local ethics committee.

Dr MacFarlane said he welcomed open debate on the issue, which raised several clinical and ethical considerations.

"Our primary goal is to save the life of the child and we don't want to do anything that would jeopardise their chance of survival.

"Any delay to initiating cancer therapy in order to carry out what is still an experimental procedure that may ultimately prove a fruitless exercise has to be considered very carefully." His advice to parents was to "watch this space".

"There's a long way to go before I would advocate a wholesale programme of pre-pubescent children having this procedure before cancer treatment."

Wellington fertility specialist Andrew Murray said he had previously frozen eggs for women as young as 16 facing cancer treatment - but he would have qualms about taking tissue from pre-pubescent girls.

"As far as I am aware, there are no ethical guidelines for doing that to children and I wouldn't feel comfortable."

Lea White, whose five-year-old daughter, Bianca, was found to have leukaemia just over a year ago, said she had worried whether treatment would rob her of the chance of having children.

However, Mrs White said even if the family had been offered the chance to freeze some ovarian tissue, she was not sure they would have subjected Bianca to another invasive procedure after chemotherapy.

Hanover funds freeze crushes a sick boy's dream

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'It's my son's trust fund'

By KERRY WILLIAMSON - The Dominion Post | Friday, 25 July 2008

JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post

BROKEN PROMISE: Benjamin Pak was dying of leukaemia when mum Jacqui told him she would take him to Australia if he could pull through. But Hanover Finance's move to freeze investor's money crushed that dream.

Benjamin Pak was dying of leukaemia when his mum told him she would take him on a trip to the Gold Coast - if he could just pull through.

He beat the odds and is in remission, and next year Jacqui Clark was going to keep her promise to her 13-year-old son.

But that dream has been shattered by Hanover Finance's move to freeze investors' money, including Benjamin's $9000 trust fund.

"I promised him when he was sick in hospital - he was dying at that point, he hadn't eaten in three weeks - that if he could just get himself better and eat, I would take him on that trip," Ms Clark said.

"We were going to go next year. He was really excited. I really don't hold any faith in getting that money back now. It's sad."

Ms Clark, of west Auckland, is one of 14,500 people who invested more than $500 million in the company run by entrepreneurs Eric Watson and Mark Hotchin.

It is the third-largest privately owned finance firm in New Zealand - and the latest casualty of the finance-company-sector meltdown.

Yesterday the Commerce Commission said it had begun an investigation into the company.

Investors face a nervous three-week wait to see how much money they will get back.

Benjamin - after 3½ years of chemotherapy - has been in remission for the past four years.

Ms Clark first invested her son's trust fund with the company about five years ago. She re-invested it for another 30 days just last week, assured by a staff member that her son's money would be safe.

"It is not my money, it is my son's. We are mortgaged up to the eyeballs and this was going to give him that little bit of happiness," she said yesterday.

"This is what we've been focusing on, a promise I made years ago. And it looks like it's gone."

Hanover's troubles are a double blow to Ms Clark's family. Her 75-year-old mother invested close to $38,000, almost all her life savings. She is in hospital recovering from hip surgery.

"Poor old Mum, she is going to get out of hospital to think she's just got nothing."

Ms Clark has tried to explain the situation to her son, naturally disappointed his dream trip to the Gold Coast is in limbo.

"The sad thing is, Benjamin has said to me all these years, 'I'd love to have this, I'd love to have that'. I always said, 'You can't, this money is for later on'. It's a risk, but I thought it was a careful risk."