A Sooke child with cancer who survived a rare transplant in 2012 is back in hospital with cancerous tumours in her brain, says her mother.
After experiencing excruciating headaches, nine-year-old Hannah Day had diagnostic tests at Victoria General Hospital last week that showed tumours in her brain and spine, said Brooke Ervin.
Hannah was flown to B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and on Monday underwent a biopsy to determine the type of tumours. “We know she has cancer,” Ervin said.
She is relieved her daughter survived the biopsy but said Hannah’s prospects of surviving another cancer were not good. She said the tumours “are the size of golf balls.”
Ervin said Hannah’s heart would not likely survive further targeted treatments, beyond steroids to help shrink the tumours.
Post surgery, Hannah has no vision and the family does not know if this is a temporary side-effect. B.C. Children’s Hospital oncologist Rod Rassekh was not immediately available for comment.
Ervin said Hannah has been given fentanyl to help with the post-surgical pain.
Hannah’s father, Robert Day, is also at her bedside in Vancouver. He and Ervin have remained close friends, sharing care and finances since separating, she said. At one point on Monday, Ervin was holding Hannah’s hand and Day was rubbing her back. “Me and him are a team — we always have been and we are best friends for that kid.”
The couple also have a seven-year-old daughter, Hailey.
Ervin also has a one-year-old daughter, Harper — Hannah’s half-sister — with partner Steven Schlatter. They are all at B.C. Children’s in Vancouver to support Hannah.
Hannah has survived many life-threatening cancers and complications in her short life.
She was diagnosed in 2012, at three, with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma that attacks muscle tissue.
After a 16-month battle, Hannah was free of the original cancer but, due to the massive doses of radiation she had undergone, she was diagnosed with chemotherapy-induced leukemia in December 2013.
On March 19, 2014, Hannah received stem cells from her mother in a rare transplant. Despite painful complications, Hannah survived.
Doctors considered her cancer-free afterwards, but her leukemia relapsed in May 2015.
Throughout, Hannah has said she just wanted a normal life. She wanted to go to school, ride her bike and grow out her hair so that she could make a ponytail.
Last week, before the latest setback, she didn’t have a ponytail but she had a full head of hair. Part of her head is now shaved. At nine, Hannah weighs only about 38 pounds, Ervin said.
Hannah’s parents expect to receive Hannah’s test results in a week to 10 days. Ervin said it’s as hard as it ever was to watch her child suffer.
“She is the best kid — she is just so full of life and love,” said Ervin, noting that when she woke up from the biopsy, Hannah asked for Pikmi Pops toys.
“Her adorable sweet voice made us all laugh,” she said.
“We laughed at her memory — she remembered she wants these toys — and that she’s so innocent. She’s just such a kid … She’s so oblivious.”
Ervin said she’s had to reach out for help to maintain her own mental health.
“In this world, there’s just so much suffering and I’m having a hard time,” she said. “She’s just suffering and she’s so scared and she’s in so much pain.”
Hannah has already made plans for her 10th birthday on Aug. 7, but Ervin is focusing on the present, not the future. “I’ve never been able to ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, if she wants children, what she wants for her next birthday.”
Click here for the family's Go Fund Me page.
