A young girl with leukaemia in the U.K., who has had to take nearly 50 different medications to combat the side effects of chemotherapy, has recently been told she is free from cancer, according to the Telegraph.
Eleven-year old Ellie Thompson of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, U.K., was diagnosed in February 2011 with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia after failing to recover from a chest infection she and her brother had the year before. Thompson's brother recovered quickly, and when she did not, she was taken to a doctor who found that her white blood cell count was low.
"Her skin color changed and her hands were so skinny," her mother, Lindsey said. "They did another blood test and then I got a letter saying we had been referred to Sheffield Children's Hospital. "We took her there and they said they wanted to do a bone marrow biopsy.
"We got the results the same day. It was very surreal. We'd thought it was possible but never voiced it to each other. Our whole world was just shattered," she said.
Thompson missed an entire year of school and was being tutored at home while battling cancer. Her mother, a nursery nurse, said that her daughter had "a whiteboard listing all her medication and a strict schedule to make sure she took them on time to combat the effects [of chemotherapy], which ranged from nosebleeds to dry skin."
According to Mrs. Thompson, chemotherapy was lowering Ellie's immune system, "making her really susceptible to all different kinds of infections and illnesses" such as cold sores, eczema, headaches, pain in her legs, to name a few.
"Once she took 11 tablets at once, and put them all in one spoon," Lindsey said, who described her daughter as "amazing," and said her daughter dealt with her illness better than her parents had.
Now Ellie has been told she is in remission and currently cancer free, and is on track to start back in 7th grade this September.
Click here to see a photo of Ellie Thompson alongside all of the medications she took to combat the effects of chemotherapy.
