Marlies's courageous cancer struggle

At sixteen, the world is your oyster and the future is bright: my niece Marlies is the youngest of three siblings in the family and a talented artist with a great love of all animals, especially cats.

But in June 2017, on her sixteenth birthday, my niece Marlies was told she had osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, in her right shoulder. On that day, life changed forever for my niece, her family and her friends; plans turned into chemo rounds and surgeries.

The next 12 months saw 30 weeks of chemo treatment, a 'limb salvage' surgery to remove the diseased bone in her arm from shoulder to elbow – with metal and donor bone grafts - then further chemo rounds following the graft. And finally, two lung surgeries to remove surface lesions and nodules.

When we received the news that Marlies was in remission, we breathed a huge sigh of relief. Life could now return to some sort of normality.

Marlies came home to Raumati to start the next phase of her life.

Our relief was short lived: she has developed an extremely rare blood clot encroaching on her heart, which has never been seen before by her doctors and surgeons, and enlarged lymph nodes. We have been advised that the cancer has spread.

The family have drained monetary resources while they have put their lives on hold to support their daughter.