HER GIFT CAN WE
Race to raise money for brave girl hit by rare form of cancer who needs treatment in the US
A GIRL who gave Prince Archie A TEDDY now needs the gift of life this Christmas.
Eight-year-old Anna Drysdale presented Prince Harry with the toy when she met him the week after the royal baby was born.
Now her devastated mother is appealing for help to raise £460,000 to save Anna’s life. She has fought cancer twice in three years.
A rare treatment has become available in America which would likely mean the disease would never return – but it is too expensive for her family to fund.
Anna was five when first diagnosed. And now she is clinging to the hope she will get to fly on a plane to see doctors who might make her better for good.
Anna said: “I’m so lucky to have the best friends in the world who are helping to get me to New York.
“I can’t believe how kind and generous everyone has been – I hope I can get there.”
Mother-of-three Keeley, 46, says all she wants for Christmas is to find the lump sum which they need to save her daughter’s life. She added: “We are in a race against time.
“We have weeks – we think possibly February – to get Anna this treatment.after that she probably would not fit into the criteria to receive it and that chance will be gone.
“We have been told if she gets the treatment, it is possible her cancer would never return. Without it, it almost certainly will, it is just a case of when. Every day we fear the cancer has returned, and as soon as it does, she is no longer eligible for treatment. The criteria is so hard to meet but the paperwork is done, Anna is accepted.
“As a parent it is soul destroying to know the treatment that could cure your daughter exists, but that you can’t afford it. It is horrific.”
Anna qualifies for a new form of Immunotherapy – not available in the UK – which would teach her body to detect and target cancer cells, while boosting her immune system.
The one-off dose is available in New York and costs £460,000.
Anna was diagnosed with osteosarcoma – a rare form of bone cancer – in February 2017 after she fell off a sofa playing with her older sisters.
Keeley said. “She said it didn’t hurt, but felt weird. So we thought it best to get checked out.
“After X-rays and tests and scans and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, we were called into the room. It was just Anna and I as her dad Ian was flying home from some work in Dubai.
“The second we walked in the room the entire atmosphere had changed and the consultant looked really affected and in tears nearly.
“As a mother I knew something was wrong and then he said the words ‘I am so sorry. It is a lot worse than we feared’, and then told me. I