Our beautiful daughter Florence is two years old. Tragically, most of her life has been spent in hospital battling cancer.

Florence was first diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma in December 2015 when she was just 16 months old. The news that our precious little girl had cancer came as a complete body blow. But we were determined that this was one fight that cancer wasn’t going to win.

Florence has been having treatment ever since. Her tiny body has bravely coped with 20 rounds of chemotherapy, major surgery, a stem cell transplant and five weeks of radiotherapy. This was all topped off with immunotherapy treatment, which was meant to complete her treatment.

Sadly, our hopes that Florence could soon start enjoying a life free of cancer were cruelly dashed in November 2016. A routine CT scan showed that the tumor was growing again, despite everything that had been thrown at it. And a recent follow-up scan in January 2017 has shown that the tumour has spread into her stomach and has wrapped around her blood vessels.

As a result, the doctors have told us the tumour is too dangerous to remove and there’s nothing more they can do. But we can. And we will. We owe it Florence to fight on, just as she is bravely doing. But we have to act fast.

We will now seek advice from a top neuroblastoma surgeon in New York. His name is Dr Michael. P. La Quaglia (feel free to Google him) and he has a fantastic record of successfully treating cancer patients with cases similar to Florence; cases that other doctors have given up hope on.

Unfortunately, we require around £250k in order for us to travel to the US and pay to have surgery that will save her life. And time is not on our side. If you can spare any amount, no matter how small, it will dramatically improve Florence’s chances of living to see her third, and many more birthdays.

Thank you,

Carolyn & Rod