Cancer steals little Smiler
Thai-based family in disbelief after 5-year-old’s death
Isla “Smiler” Donaldson was holding her favourite toy, Sunny the Labrador dog, when her short life came to an end. Isla, aged just 5, died in Auckland from cancer last month. She had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at age 2 in Thailand, where she lived with parents Jim and Andrea and older sister Lulu.
“She was an angel,” said her grieving dad. “She was a beautiful little girl.
“About three years ago our little girl out of the blue suddenly started getting bruising,” Jim, originally from Wellington, told the Herald yesterday.
He and Andrea, who is from Germany, lived on the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand, where Jim became general manager and a coowner of dive centre Big Blue Diving.
Two ex-staff were involved in last year’s dramatic cave rescue of 12 boys and their football coach in Thailand.
Isla’s cancer was diagnosed in the capital, Bangkok, and she had chemotherapy for about six months.
“In October 2016 we were allowed home — back to our island.”
But at the end of 2016 she relapsed and began more treatment, for about a year. That included a stem cell transplant from Andrea.
“She was fine for ages . . . She had a few issues with GvHD [graft-versushost disease], which is a side effect to stem cell transplant, but basically she was doing okay.
“Then out of the blue last Christmas she just went for a scheduled check-up and the blood tests were terrible . . . The doctor told us there was nothing he could do and that we should take her home,” Jim said.
“We decided because the doctors there [in Bangkok] couldn’t do anything, to bring her back to New Zealand so she could be with her family.
“We were told she would have about four months to live, but she just got worse and worse really quickly and then on the 18th of January she passed away.”
Isla had arrived in New Zealand on January 10 and was admitted to Starship children’s hospital in Auckland for two nights before going home to her family in Greenhithe.
“She died in a lot of pain. It’s very hard to believe it’s happened,” her father said.
“She was called Isla Smiler before she got sick . . . because she was just such a happy little thing.
“Isla and Lulu were just so close and sweet and Isla adored her sister more than anything in the world.”
Jim said Isla wouldn’t go anywhere without her toy dog Sunny.
“She ended up dying with Sunny in her arms, so when we cremated her we cremated them together, the little cuddly toy.
“She was just a bubbly little bean, she was an inspiration to lots of people. She was the happiest little girl and funny, and she was too young to realise how sick she was.
“She was so brave as well. She never moaned about her sickness.”
Jim said Isla’s treatment cost a fortune. Insurance had covered many costs and crowdfunding campaigns had helped, but he hadn’t worked for three years and most of the family’s savings were now gone.