Edinburgh girl needs to raise $340k for life saving surgery in NYC.

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Kira had been 11-years-old when the right side of her
abdomen had first started to hurt.
It was a stabbing pain, and sometimes she would
even vomit. At school in Edinburgh, she started to get
breathless. A talented netball player, she was eventually
moved to a different position, a less challenging one, as
it became harder to breath.
Her mother, Aud, took her to their GP. Growing pains,
it was suggested, perhaps something hormonal.
The stabbing continued. So did their trips to the doctor.
Finally, after seven months, in July 2014, a full blood
count was taken. There was something unusual, signs of
possible coeliac disease the doctors suggested, but they
wanted to be sure.
Kira was referred to gastroenterology and they asked to
do an ultrasound just as a precaution. High-frequency
sound waves rebounded over her abdomen to create an
image of what was beneath her skin.
Flickering on the screen in front of them the doctors
saw a large mass. It was huge, spread out and lurking
across Kira’s slender frame.
An MRI and a biopsy confirmed all the fears they had -
it was a tumour.
“It really was huge,” says Aud. “Around two litres in your
mind’s eye.”
The doctors gave it a name - neuroblastoma - a
word which sounded like a dangerous bomb. It went
alongside ‘cancer’ - a word which crept and crawled and
did not fight fair.
“I was thinking of a hernia or something, you never in
your wildest dreams think it will be cancer.”
Six rounds of chemotherapy followed and then major
abdominal surgery.
The surgery was the battle tank, rolling in after them to
subdue what remained.
Even at that point the actual tumour was encased in
major blood vessels. It would be too difficult to get it
all, but Kira went through radiotherapy and a powerful
drug to get at what remained.
The battle over, Kira went into remission. Just 12 weeks
later she relapsed. The tumour had started to grow.
“I didn’t really know what to expect at first,” says Kira.
“I wasn’t upset when I first heard it was cancer because I
already had thought well, what else could it be?
“I coped quite well with the first treatment. I just took it
bit by bit, day by day.”
The second time round though, Kira knew what to
expect. The most difficult challenges in life can become
that much harder when you know exactly how much
they will hurt.
This time she had four rounds of chemotherapy, a
harsher dose. The battle had escalated inside her and
Edinburgh Girl Needs To Raise
$340k for Life Saving Surgery
CAPTION: Kira Noble, 14, urgently needs a
potentially life-saving cancer treatment in New
By Laura Piper and Louise Scott
Photo credit: Aud Noble

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more powerful weapons were needed.
Second major abdominal surgery followed, this time the
tumour was in her pelvic area and the tanks were sent
in again under the command of some of the world’s best
surgeons.
They took out what they could, followed by more high
dose chemo and a stem cell transplant.
It was a very intense treatment which ended in August
2016.
Kira reached remission for a second time and the small
part of the original tumour that was left inside her, but
then ten months later, just before Kira’s 14th birthday,
they discovered that it wasn’t. The tumour had started
to grow.
Kira went in for her third major surgery - a third battle
where surgeons spent nine hours trying to get the
cancerous monster out of her.
But after years of chemotherapy, the tumour had
become hardened, glue-like and stuck inside her.
They deemed it to be too life threatening to remove it
but it was life threatening to leave it in too.
After years of chemotherapy the tumour had become
hardened.
Kira’s last surgery was in January 2018. Doctors have
suggested a new treatment plan to have drugs injected
into her body that would directly target the tumour.
But she will still need successful surgery to happen if her
life is to be saved.
Her mother, after years of research into her daughter’s
illness, knew of one team who could give them hope
- the neuroblastoma doctors at the Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.
Aud wrote to them, begging them to look at her
daughter’s case notes. Could they find a way? Could
they treat her?
It was a very difficult few months, says Aud, waiting for
an answer.
The team said yes.
All the family need now is to pay for it. They now have
just a few weeks to raise the £340k needed to pay for the
treatment.
Complete strangers have donated. Together more than
$180,000 has been raised but more is desperately needed
for the surgery to go ahead.
Kira is about to go through another round of chemo
once she has gained enough strength to take it on.
“I need to get this out, to get back to normal and have a
normal life,” says Kira.
“Knowing what’s going to happen, it’s not easy. I knew
I’d lose my hair again. That I wouldn’t be able to see my
friends.”
“It’s not exactly what I want to do, to have another
surgery again because I’ve just had one,” she adds.
“But if it saves my life then I’ll go for it. I want to be
here. I know what I want to be when I’m older. I just
want to get there and do it.”Photo credit: Aud Noble