Girl, 4, on 'road to recovery' as she takes on rare and aggressive brain tumour
A little girl has made a miraculous recovery less than one year after being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive brain tumour.
CT scans last September showed a tumour and cyst were taking up the entire left side of Mila Larsen's brain. The youngster had a grade 3 Ependymoma, an aggressive and fast-growing malignant tumour.
Although doctors removed the tumour during surgery at Sheffield Children's Hospital, they warned the girl's family there was a "very high chance" of it returning. Mila, though, bravely underwent chemotherapy, and a new and progressive type of radiotherapy called proton therapy, which is useful for treating tumours which have not spread and are located in or near important parts of the body.
The four-year-old girl finished her treatment in December last year (xxxxxxxxx WS)
Pictured with mum Wendy Larsen and dad Andrew Black, Mila rang the bell at Sheffield Children's Hospital (xxxxxxxxx WS)Mila began undergoing the treatment at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, which is one of only two in the UK to offer it and, by December, she rang the bell at Sheffield Children's Hospital to celebrate the end of her treatment and the beginning of her recovery.
Eight months on, and Mila's family said they are taking every day as it comes and that she has "good and bad days". They told Grimsby Live Mila undergoes MRI scans once every three months, and will do so once every four month from next year onwards, but she starts school, on a part-time basis, next month.
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Ruth Larson, the girl's aunty, said: "She has her good days and her bad days, we try and take every day as it comes because you never know how she's going to be that day. She suffers with a lot of fatigue and headaches.
"We don't really make big plans to go out for the day because we don't know if she's going to be fatigued or not, so we take every day as it comes. When she's feeling up to it, we'll take her to the beach because it's her favourite place.
"Me and my sister Wendy, Mila's mother, we've been close all our lives, so Mila's like a daughter to me. We grew up in the middle of nowhere, so we only had each other, and we've just carried on that closeness."
Mila, pictured with her family in hospital, is on the 'road to recovery' (xxxxxxxxx WS)Due to the type of cancer, cancerous cells could still be present inside her body, and Mila will undergo tests for the next 10 years with the potential that the tumour could return.
"It's quite difficult because it's always in the back of your mind, even if you're having fun with her. They don't call it remission, because technically she could still have the cancerous cells inside her system but it's not showing as a tumour anymore," Ruth added.
"She has lumbar punctures done every so often, but at the moment they're coming back negative. It's still a big worry, the type of cancer she had is quite a rare and very aggressive cancer. It can come back so quickly in a matter of two to three months."
In a bid to give something back to Young Lives vs Cancer - the charity that has been a huge source of support to the whole family since Mila was diagnosed - Ruth is hosting a fundraiser event on Sunday, August 27 at The Grosvenor pub in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, in conjunction with Grovefest.
She said: "It's one of the main charities that have really supported all of us as a family. They've given us financial support and even emotional support, you can just ring them, even if you're just sat on the end of the phone crying your eyes out, they will just listen."
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