Brave Chantal Knight is one of the first nominees for our Moorlands Heroes awards.
THE first two nominations have been received for the new community awards in the Staffordshire Moorlands.
Amanda Knight has put forward her daughter Chantal in the Child or Teenager of courage award.
In her nomination, Amanda said: “I would like to nominate my daughter Chantal Knight for teenager of courage award.”
Chantal will turn 13 in November, which is an achievement in itself. She became unwell at the age of two after several visits to the doctors and an emergency trip to the hospital she was admitted into intensive care unit on life support. She was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis – an extremely rare, life-limiting and life-threatening condition that affects 0.24 in a million.
This condition causes Chantal to bleed into her lungs for nearly 11 years. Chantal has been rushed to hospital with several episodes, has daily medication and attends hospital every month for infusions of steroids and yearly infusions of a special treatment.
Chantal has also endured 24 months of chemotherapy endless bronchoscopys and been fitted with several devices to administer treatments.
Amanda said: “Five years ago, her consultant was happy with her progress and gave us the news that her treatment was to stop little did any of us know she was to fall ill again three weeks after been told what we thought was fantastic news.
“Chantal suffered several severe episodes so therefore her treatment had to continue – daily meds along with the monthly infusions three days every four weeks. This continued until March this year when we were told she had been doing so well with treatments that the consultant wanted to stop.”
Within a couple of weeks Chantal started to become unwell again and tests revealed she was experiencing another episode followed by two more, therefore her treatment could not stop and she was to continue to attend hospital three days every four weeks for treatment along with four daily medicines.
Despite being back and too from the hospital, she has been a member of Leek Carnival Queens for more than four years and became Carnival Queen herself in 2016-2017.
And with the support of her team, she raised £3,000 for charity.
Amanda added: “Chantal is a well liked character and has an amazing attitude to life despite missing a lot of school life due to ill health, she is always keen to learn and this year won an attainment in computing. She is an inspiration to many.”