Derbyshire teacher fights to save daughters life - Appeal raises nearly £32k in first weekend
Baby Winnie needs lifesaving treatment to battle a rare form of cancer. The NHS can no longer offer her treatment to cure her, only to prolong her life. However, there is treatment available abroad if Winnie’s family can fund it themselves. Winnie’s mum, Lucy Impey (nee Hopton), a psychology teacher who has previously taught at Derbyshire secondary school, Heanor Gate Science College (now Heanor Gate Academy), has set up a Go Fund Me page to raise vital funds to secure her daughter’s treatment.
“I hate to ask strangers for money for my daughter but she is the most wonderful, kind little girl who has had the most difficult year. I know this treatment has worked for others and I need to give her this chance. I can’t lose my baby.”
In the first weekend, over one thousand people have donated and the total currently stands at £31,739. Winnie’s parents are currently finding quote for the urgent pioneering CAR-T therapy abroad, in either Singapore, Spain or Germany.
Lucy says, “I am so thankful to anyone who supports us.”
Winnie’s story (in Mum, Lucy’s words)
Winnie was a normal baby. She was always very active and loved dancing in her bouncer. She has always been strong willed and demanding. Around 11 months old she got a bad cold, and so did the rest of the family so we didn't think anything of it. It didn't clear up so I took her to the doctors and they gave her antibiotics for an ear infection. She got a bit better but then worse again and her tooth started growing out at a strange angle. I sent photos to the dentist but they wouldn't see her due to covid. They said it looked normal. It got worse and she stopped eating or walking so I demanded the dentist see her as I thought they needed to remove the tooth. They saw her and told me to take her to A and E and that evening they told me she had leukaemia and put me on the oncology award (alone as parents weren't allowed on together). The leukaemia had also caused her tooth to push out as it was in her jaw and her tooth was removed.
She was initially medium risk. Her counts when we brought her in were still good but she has infant leukaemia which is more aggressive than childhood leukaemia. She responded well to chemo.
They then put her on an immunotherapy which targets specific cells. This is supposed to have far fewer side effects than chemotherapy. However as infant leukaemia is so rare it had only been used when children have relapsed before. Unfortunately I think this was a huge mistake as in the infant leukaemia community there are lots of stories of this drug (blinatumomab) not working for infant leukaemia and actually causing the leukaemia to change. This is what happened to Winnie and her leukaemia started coming back. If she hadn't had this drug her leukaemia wouldn't have changed and we would now have so many more options.
Due to her leukaemia coming back she was now classed as high risk and the plan was a bone marrow transplant. This involves intense chemo to destroy the bone marrow and then donor cells from an umbilical cord given to replace it. Prior to this she had more chemo to get her back in remission. We were told she had a 75% chance of this curing her.
She did really well following transplant and recovered quickly. Everything looked good and she was 100% donor cells which usually means there is no chance she'd relapsed. However we got a call about three months after the transplant that leukaemia had been detected again. We did a scan and it had also come back in her jaw. This time it had changed again, and had dropped a lot of its markers. We had a meeting where the consultant basically said we had very few options and this is now a very difficult disease.
A few days later we had a call that Winnie's leukaemia was expressing a marker called CD7 and there was a CD7 CAR T trial in the UK! There were two people ahead but if we could keep her healthy till then it was her best bet at cure. CAR T takes cells with a certain marker and trains them to fight leukaemia. It can sometimes be a cure or sometimes get people in remission for a transplant. We would need a transplant after as Winnie's leukaemia is so aggressive now.
However a few days later we were told that Winnie's leukaemia doesn't fit the trial. Despite it expressing the CD7 marker, her leukaemia isn't a t cell leukaemia, it is now neither B cell or T cell due to the way it has changed. It’s very rare. This meant that although the team would like to treat her and thought it was her best bet, she didn't fit the trial criteria so couldn't be accepted. We were told her chance of survival is now very poor without this treatment and so were given the option of more chemo or to take her home and wait for the leukaemia to take over. We immediately started the Go Fund Me page in the hope of giving her a chance of beating this.
She is a wonderful little girl. So engaged and great speech. Despite the year she's had since she was diagnosed in June she is developing amazingly. She is definitely a bossy little character with a great sense of humour and loves being with her family and running around exploring.
Go Fund Me page https://gofund.me/034743e3
Public Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/winnieswishnotts/
Public Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/winnies_wish/
Twitter @lucyandwinnie1
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