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Support Victoria's overseas cancer treatment

  • Happy New Year

      2 January 2023
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    Hi all,

    Just a short note to share some good news. On 21 December 2022, we had Victoria’s first MRI since radiation treatment began. Her scans were clear! This is incredible news for us all. Victoria will continue to have scans every 3 months and we are hopeful this disease will stay away and she will be one of the lucky once with no recurrence.

    We can’t thank everyone enough for your support. It has been such a help for us and getting through our time in America and through the next few months until I start to head back to work. From the bottom of our hearts - thank you!

    We now continue to focus on Victoria’s recovery and helping her catch up on her milestones.

    We had a wonderful break over Christmas with our families which gave us some much needed laughs.

    Wishing you all a wonderful 2023 ahead.

    All our love

    Monique, Andrew and most importantly Victoria xxx

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  • And we are back...

      30 November 2022
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    Hi all,

    Sorry for the long delay in updates. I know some of you follow Victoria's instagram and so will have seen posts from our time in Florida.

    We are so happy to share that Victoria completed her 30 rounds of radiation therapy at the UF Proton Therapy Institute in Jacksonville Florida and we returned home to New Zealand 2 weeks ago.

    Victoria handled the treatment very well overall, it was a lot for her as she had to undergo a general anaesthetic everyday. She finished her radiation on the 8th November and this also marked the end of all her treatment for the brain tumour. It was a big moment for all of us.

    So what next? Victoria had a catch up with the oncology team at Starship yesterday, they are happy overall with her progress, so much so that we have removed the feeding tube that has been in for almost 12 months. We are so happy about this :-)

    We have an MRI and a range of blood tests on 15 December to check how everything is looking, and then we will continue to have MRIs every three months for the next few years.

    We continue to have a number of areas to work with Victoria on - her walking and balance - she has just been fitted for orthotics, she also sees a VNT specialist each week. We have sessions with the speech and language team who help us with her swallow, eating and also her speech development. We will be keeping a close eye on her hearing as she has some loss from the chemotherapy, and we also have appointments with the eye clinic to help her right eye. We expect she will start to get quite tired soon from the radiotherapy. This is the first side effect we are likely to see and the tiredness could last 6 months to a year.

    But on the whole, we have a very happy little girl which makes very happy parents. We so appreciate all the help each of you have shown us. Thank you all again from the bottom of our hearts.

    All our love

    Team Victoria xx

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  • And we are off...

      12 September 2022
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    Hi all,

    Just a note to say thank you for all of your support. We are off this evening for Houston and then onto Jacksonville. We head to the Proton Therapy hospital on Wednesday to get underway with planning and will start Radiation in a couple of weeks.

    We so appreciate all the help you have given us. I haven't managed to finish thanking everyone personally but I will continue to make my way through all your messages and donations and say thank you. We have had a busy few weeks, having to have an MRI, squeeze in another round of chemo and then back in hospital for 5 days with an infection. We have then been in and out with check ups and prep. We are all clear now, signed off and ready to go.

    We will keep you up to date as we get to Florida and through the coming 10 weeks.

    Please follow Victoria's instagram page if you want more regular snippets of how we are getting on.

    All our love,

    Team Vi xx

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  • We have news!

      15 August 2022
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    8 months ago today our lives changed forever. Our long awaited beautiful baby girl was taken to hospital and would shortly be diagnosed with a massive brain tumour.

    So at 8 months into this journey we are so so pleased to share that the Ministry of Health has approved the medical funding for Victoria’s Proton Beam Therapy in Jacksonville Florida. 👏👏👏 this is the BEST news and we are so incredibly relieved to have received this news!

    We will find out more in the coming days as to when we leave etc…

    While we still have so far to go, and the radiation has its own challenges, we’ve reflected on what Victoria has faced and it’s amazing to see how far she has come.

    Again we couldn’t get through without all your support so we thank you from the bottom of our hearts 💕

    We will continue to keep you updated as we learn more.

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    • 15/08/2022 by Wendy Holgate

      Absolutely thrilled Victoria has been approved for this!! But how on earth could the MOH not. I had my first day back at work today since Gus got sick, read your update at lunchtime, felt very emotional. Lets hope the process to get you there is speedy xxx

  • Florida

      31 July 2022

    Hi all,

    Thanks so much for all your support. It has been incredible. We have been advised that UF Health Proton Therapy Institute in Jacksonville, Florida have accepted Victoria for treatment. This is very exciting to know that we have a spot there for treatment if we get the funding approval from the Ministry of Health.

    We are hoping to hear from the MoH in the next few weeks and then expect to be moving pretty quickly overseas for Victoria's treatment to get underway.

    We will keep you updated as we more news comes in.

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  • Thank you all

      22 July 2022

    We want to thank you all for your generous support. We have been absolutely overwhelmed with the support for this and other fundraising which is happening as well.

    We have put a cap on the Give a Little until we hear from the MoH.

    Thank you all for your support to date. It is greatly appreciated.

    Team Vi xx

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    • 15/08/2022 by judy

      That's great news!