Breya

Breya’s story

Breya was born a very healthy baby, never having any health conditions. She started nursery like any other child, but mum, Holly, started to notice Breya was catching bug after bug. Breya started to become very unsettled at night, sweating and being sick. She was taken to A&E on two occasions as she was so hot and struggled to breathe. 

Holly began to believe it was a milk allergy causing all of the problems and made more sense when Breya’s stomach started to swell. After a further week of tests, Breya was diagnosed with stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma, which had spread to her bones. 

Over the next few weeks, Breya’s health deteriorated as she began chemotherapy.

After completing chemotherapy, Breya had a 14-hour operation, radiotherapy, more chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and immunotherapy. Plus complications like an aneurysm in her hip and a severe bone infection in her foot.

The family fundraised so they could do everything in their power to keep Breya free from cancer, and after end of treatment scans showed she was ‘no evidence of disease’ her family flew to America to enrol her on the bivalent vaccine clinical trial, in the hope it would help keep her cancer away. Breya completed the trial in 2019. 

During and after treatment, Breya was quite withdrawn and fearful, however in the years since treatment has ended, she has become much more social and is loving life. School is her favourite place to be and she has lots of friends in her class.  

_{Solving Kids' Cancer UK's children's fundraising campaigns} 

_{Funds raised will go towards helping Breya should she need further treatment not available through the NHS. Breya's cancer, high-risk neuroblastoma is aggressive with high rates of relapse. At relapse, the chance of survival is extremely low. If Breya no longer needs the funds or is in remission five years post the end of treatment, the funds will be used to support other children and families affected by neuroblastoma through our activities.}