Sassy, unique and kind, 10-year-old Eva loves performing on stage, recreating TikTok dances and making bracelets. Life post-treatment hasn’t come without challenges, but just like she always did during treatment, Eva faces everything with a smile.
“Eva is just about to start senior school. She is kind and sensitive to other people's feelings, always being the first to notice when someone is sad or offering to sit with the child that’s on their own. She inspires us everyday!"
Hayley, Eva's mum
Eva’s story to diagnosis was quite long, having been diagnosed with allergies, various viral infections and constipation for years.
After around one month solid on Calpol and the doctors telling mum, Hayley, that she was a paranoid first-time mum, she broke down to a doctor in A&E. Everyone kept saying there was nothing wrong with Eva and she felt like she was going crazy.
Eva was diagnosed with high-risk MYCN amplified neuroblastoma on 12th August 2014, exactly one week before her second birthday. Instead of the party they’d planned, they had a small family gathering in the waiting room.
“The doctor told me to sit down (I didn’t think that was a thing, only in films) and then told me they’d found a tumour. The first words I managed were, ‘Is she going to die?’. Still in shock and not really understanding, realisation set in when we were put into the oncology room with leaflets about cancer.”
Hayley, Eva’s mum
On the day of her birthday, 2014, Eva was transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital. This is when she met Dr Daniel Morgenstern and all the wonderful nurses on Giraffe Ward who were to take care of her, and who Hayley is forever grateful for to this day. (Later, Eva would become affectionately known to them as ‘Eva the Diva’!).
Eva had a Hickman line inserted and an NG tube and Rapid COJEC chemotherapy commenced. MIBG scans showed a good response to treatment, so surgery was booked in, but the day before, there was a change to the plan. Although Eva had had a good response to Rapid COJEC, the surgeon wasn’t comfortable with where the tumour sat - too close to organs - so Eva was given an additional two cycles of TVD chemotherapy. Despite TVD shrinking the tumour more, the surgeon still wasn’t happy, so Eva went onto high-dose chemotherapy in March 2015.
Surgery eventually took place in April 2015, which removed 95% and Eva was officially classed as NED (no evidence of disease). Eva then had 15 cycles of radiotherapy and six months of antibody treatment. She finished treatment on 6th November 2015 when she was three years old. There was a firework display nearby that night, which Hayley told Eva was for her end of treatment celebrations after she rang the end of treatment bell.
Then in June 2016, a routine scan revealed Eva had relapsed. Hayley was told that although they would treat the relapse, they were doing so to prolong life rather than cure Eva. Eva’s Hickman line was scheduled to be put back in.
After an MRI scan, the doctors said the relapse was inconclusive. While the original scan categorically showed a relapse, they couldn’t find what they had originally seen. An MIBG scan was needed to confirm, but they couldn’t get the isotope needed for the scan for another two weeks. They spent those two weeks in complete limbo in this life-or-death situation. Fortunately, once the scan took place, doctors were able to confirm that Eva had not relapsed.
Then in February 2020, there was a lump in Eva’s neck with ‘suspicious qualities’. Hayley was told there was a 95% chance it meant relapse with Eva’s history and the lump qualities. The same surgeon who operated on Eva initially operated on her again. They endured a fearful week waiting for the biopsy results to confirm whether it was neuroblastoma, but it wasn’t – Eva had not relapsed.
Eva is now 11 and is a truly incredible young lady.
