Emilie is golden girl at transplant games
AN INCREDIBLE six-year-old who beat cancer after undergoing a liver transplant when she was just a toddler has been crowned a sporting champion in the British Transplant Games.
Little Emilie Austin came away from the event in Liverpool with three golds and one silver, and parents Becky and Dave couldn’t be more proud of their little girl.
The youngster, who goes to Oak Tree Primary School in Cheadle Hulme, was diagnosed with a rare childhood liver cancer known as hepatoblastoma in September 2012.
The disease was very advanced, and Becky and Dave were told that it was likely Emilie would need a new liver.
Over the next few months Emilie underwent a very intense and gruelling course of chemotherapy which made her extremely poorly.
In January 2013, she had an operation in Leeds to remove some of the cancer which had spread to her lungs.
One week later, she was placed on the transplant list and within 24 hours her parents received a call to tell them a match had been found.
Becky, 35, said: “We didn’t want to get our hopes up, quite often you hear about false calls where the organ just isn’t suitable enough but it was, we were so lucky.”
Emilie had her transplant before undergoing further chemotherapy to ensure the cancer had gone.
She has now been in remission for more than three years and Becky, who also has 15-monthold Madeleine, says Emilie is completely aware of what she has been through.
She said: “She is just incredible, she has a really good understanding of why she needed the liver and where it’s come from.
“For her school homework once she had to write about her hero, and she wrote about ‘the lady who saved my life’.
“Every time she makes a wish it’s to make poorly children better.”
The family are now supporting Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, as well as Organ Donation Week which took place earlier this month.
Becky said: “Both campaigns are so important. Emilie didn’t appear unwell until a week before she was diagnosed.
“Her tumour just appeared one day and doctors think it had been hidden behind her rib cage. People need to be aware that children do get cancer, and that organ donation really does save lives – Emilie is living proof of that.”