CALGARY -- Last year was supposed to be the best summer ever for Arya McDougall-MacLaine and her family before symptoms of her brain cancer returned, now she’s preparing to join a trial treatment at the end of this summer, in hopes it will extend her young life.
Trouble is, the six-year-old’s family needs $300,000 USD up front in a trust fund as a contingency for Seattle Children’s Hospital, host of the trial.
“It’s the most promising thing that there is at the moment,” said Arya’s mother, Petra McDougall.
The little girl has been receiving treatment for brain cancer for three years, including one spinal surgery and as many as five brain surgeries — the most recent in early May.
The BrainChild program is in the early phase of its CAR T-cell therapy for the brain.
It would involve extracting Arya’s white blood cells to be re-engineered to fight cancerous cells in her tumour, and returned to her bloodstream four to six weeks later.
The family says there is no provincial funding available for this out-of-country treatment.
As well, she’ll begin daily radiation treatments on May 25 to stabilize her tumour for thirty days.
“But she doesn’t let it stop her. She still loves to go out she loves to camp, she loves to swim she loves to do all of those things,” said McDougall.
Her father says contributing to this type of research could benefit other children with brain cancer.
“Also it’s nice to be able to contribute to that as well and to know that we can contribute to the research and build (on that) and hopefully help people going forward,” said Jake MacLaine.
The family has set up a GoFundMe campaign and posts about Arya’s experiences on the family blog.
