If you want to know what the love and support for children with cancer in Victoria looks like, take a look at the people set to line the Pat Bay highway Friday afternoon.
Supporters will cheer from highway overpasses and line the road out of the Swartz Bay ferry terminal in support of four-year-old Hannah Day who will be celebrating her 100th cancer-free day.
Like any parent of a child with cancer, Hannah’s mother Brooke Ervin has been taking it one day at a time. The family travels back and forth from their home in Langford to B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver as doctors perform blood tests and monitor Hannah’s reaction to her cancer treatment.
Ervin talked to my colleague Cindy Harnett, who wrote a great piece in Thursday’s paper outlining what the family is going through:
“It’s overwhelming; I’m in shock we’re finally here,” said mother Brooke Ervin on Wednesday. The moment is “something we’ve been waiting for, for two years.”
In a Hail Mary last attempt to save the four-year-old from dying with leukemia, Hannah underwent a rare haploidentical transplant, using her mom’s stem cells, on March 19 at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
Friday marks the 100th day Hannah will have been free of both leukemia and the original cancer — called rhabdomyosarcoma — she was diagnosed with in 2012.
“This welcoming home is so nice — to see how many people want to see this little girl come home, and stay home, and go to school and have a normal life,” Ervin said.
It’s being loosely organized through social media, including the Hope for Hannah Day on Facebook.
Hannah will be considered cancer free on Day 100 because regular blood tests have not revealed abnormalities. On that day she will have her final bone marrow biopsy. Doctors are optimistic. However, results aren’t expected until Monday. That won’t stop the homecoming, but it means her parents can’t breathe easy until Monday.
Ervin expects the family will leave from Tsawwassen at 4 or 5 p.m., which would see the family — including sister Hailey and father Robert Day — arrive at Swartz Bay terminal at 5:35 or 6:35 p.m.
Earlier this year, Hannah was told she was cancer-free and headed home to Langford only to learn hours later a new cancer, leukemia, had been detected. It was caused by the radiation used to kill her original cancer.
Even after tests confirm Hannah is cancer-free, she will have weekly blood tests as well as monthly checkups for leukemia (and four tests a year for the original cancer) for the next two years. “So life will never really go back to normal,” said Ervin.
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Every Tour de Rock rider knows that they’re doing the ride with kids like Hannah in mind. We’re constantly reminded that every fundraiser and every physically demanding training session is in the name of children who are more brave than I can ever imagine. As tempted as we might be to whine about how hard it is to ride over that hill, we're silenced by the thought of chemotherapy, radiation and hospital beds.
I’ve recently found out that Hannah is one of my junior riders. (Every Tour de Rock rider is linked up with a child with cancer or their siblings to provide support, friendship and mentorship). I can’t tell you how excited I am to meet Hannah, especially in the comfort of her own home surrounded by her loving family rather than the hospital bed she’s come to associate with the norm. Her smile, seen in the pages of the newspaper and on television, is truly inspiring.
My other junior rider is Rafael Fuentes, the older brother of Baby Madrona who died in June of last year at the age of two. Just after Baby Madrona died, the Fuentes family spoke of the overwhelming kindness that carried them through their difficult journey and I’m glad that five-year-old Rafael will get to experience the lasting support that comes with being a Tour de Rock junior rider.
The Victoria community does so much to make a terrible journey a little easier for kids with cancer. The proof of that will line the highway Friday for Hannah Day.
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Katie DeRosa is one of the media riders for this year’s Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock, a 13-day bike ride from Port Alice to Victoria. Follow DeRosa's blog for details about the ongoing training, leading up to full coverage of the ride Sept. 20 to Oct. 3. To donate to her fundraising campaign, click here.
