Wyndham Vale’s Ellinor Svoronos will aim to raise money to help children battling cancer when she lines up with cancer survivors of all ages this Saturday.
Ellinor, 9, will take part in Wyndham Relay for Life survivors’ walk after beating a rare form of cancer.
She was diagnosed with cancer aged five, after doctors noticed that her white blood cells were eating away at her bones. They discovered lesions the size of lemons three millimetres from Ellinor’s spine and the main artery leading to her brain.
With the cancer eroding her skull, Ellinor began chemotherapy immediately and was placed in a neck brace.
Doctors regularly scanned her skull and spine to monitor the cancer’s progress, until one day a couple of years ago they noticed that her bones were regenerating and covering the gap in her skull.
Her mother Belinda Svoronos says the family never imagined Ellinor would one day be given the all-clear.
Svoronos says Ellinor’s cancer was so rare that doctors initially struggled to diagnose it. She had to stay in hospital for four weeks while tests were carried out.
“When you are going through it, you don’t want to think too far ahead,’’ Svoronos says. ‘‘You just try and not fall apart.
“The cancer doesn’t usually happen in the skull. The doctors didn’t even know what to expect. They said they would probably never see another child with it in their career.”
Svoronos says the family wants to help other families of children with cancer.
“We were lost for so long trying to find out what was wrong with her. If we can get word out there, to say that you can ask for further tests or
you can say that you are not feeling OK, then maybe we can help someone else. By sharing our experience, we want to make someone else’s journey easier.”
Wyndham’s annual Relay for Life, which raises
funds for the Cancer Council, starts at noon this Saturday at Victoria University’s athletics track in Hoppers Lane, Werribee.
