Kayla's campaign

Kayla adores her big brothers, Riley and Kory, and loves spending time with them.  

In May 2021, Kayla was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer that has a 40-50% chance of long-term survival at diagnosis.  

Kayla’s parents, Stacey and Wayne, started fundraising for Kayla to enrol on the bivalent vaccine clinical trial in New York after frontline treatment with the aim of keeping the cancer away.  

Thanks to the incredible support the campaign received, when Kayla completed treatment in October 2022, the family were able to travel to New York for the trial. Sadly though, a bone marrow and PET scan in New York revealed she was not eligible for the trial and further scans in the UK showed disease progression. 

Kayla is currently receiving treatment back in the UK and the family are continuing to fundraise for any potentially life-saving treatment needed in the future which isn't available through the NHS and could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. Follow Kayla's story on social media. 

Kayla’s story 

In the weeks leading up to her diagnosis, Kayla had complained of pains in her leg and was struggling to put weight on it so was taken by her parents to A&E. After a few days and some swelling, Kayla’s pain wasn’t getting any better, so her parents took her back to the hospital for blood tests and an X-ray.  

The following day the family were contacted by the doctor as her bloods had shown she had elevated infection levels. After being seen by multiple doctors, Kayla was admitted onto the children’s ward and taken for an MRI scan, which identified she had malignancy in her bones. It was decided that the next step would be for Kayla to have a bone marrow aspirate. The family returned home for the weekend to try and celebrate brother Riley’s birthday, but they were fearful of what the results would be.  

“Going back home not knowing what was happening and trying hard to put a brave face on for our children, especially as it was Riley’s birthday was awful. You never think this will happen to you and have no idea how you are going to manage or cope,” says Stacey.  

On Monday the family headed to Addenbrookes, hoping they would be able to return home the same day. Sadly, as they had feared, the results were not good. They received the devastating news that their beautiful four-year-old daughter had cancer.  

On Wednesday 19th May it was confirmed that Kayla had stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma and she started aggressive frontline treatment straight away. 

Treatment so far 

Kayla has been so brave throughout her months of treatment. Since her diagnosis, she has endured chemotherapy, surgery, high-dose chemotherapy, stem cell retrieval and radiotherapy and 5 cycles of immunotherapy.  

Since receiving the news that Kayla’s disease has progressed, Kayla is receiving BIT chemotherapy and will have reassessment scans after four cycles. The family hopes to enrol Kayla on a trial based in Leeds with the aim to get her back into remission. 

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

_{Funds raised will go towards helping Kayla and her family. If Kayla no longer needs the funds or is in remission five years post the end of successful treatment, the funds will be used to support other children and families affected by neuroblastoma through our activities. For children with high-risk neuroblastoma, like Kayla, the survival rate is much lower than other childhood cancers. Upon relapse, this rate reduces even further.}