How does one even begin to tell a story of this magnitude? A little girl’s life is on the line. A very precious and dear one at that. One who has made nurses dance due to her infectious joy. A child who has so much life within her, but has had to channel that warm energy into a flame of fight. One of her favourite songs is actually Chakra Khan’s Through the Fire. Indeed, her warmth is a flame of fight in a battle that the strongest soldiers would salute her for. High-risk stage 4 neuroblastoma- cancer.
Mairah was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma at 15 months old in February this year. Neuroblastoma is an aggressive form of childhood cancer, a beast of a battle. Her mother has expressed the reality for the Capetonian family as one which has reached a point whereby just like the troops at Dunkirk, life boats are needed.
We have the opportunity to be the lifeboats of rescue for our tiny soldier.
“Right now our little family is in crisis, stranded on the shores looking for help. It sounds poetic but these words are accurate, we are in need of rescuing, Mairah needs to be saved. Could you please continue to send the little boats her way,” writes her mother.
I read Mairah’s story, as shared by her mother on the Instagram account dedicated to Mairah, @mairahsmiracle.
Her mom, Jenna Cook writes in such a way that we all know Mairah. Her little smiles and her beautiful kind brown eyes, and the pain behind her light. These become so familiar in Jenna’s brave story-telling. Jenna walks us through the highs that most people wouldn’t notice in a story like this one, and is honest about the lows that many of us may recognise, and other may never have seen firsthand. Her family has walked as far as they can with their little angel, protecting her and helping her in every way imaginable. But they need us now, the little life boats.
To increase her chances of survival, Mairah will require immunotherapy, a treatment not yet available in South Africa. She needs to go to the US. The finances may look stark for one family, but possible if many of us, the greater Capetown, South African, and humanity family come together now.
To help raise the roughly remaining R2.1 million, I implore that we share her story. “The immunotherapy and related costs are exorbitant, but Mairah’s parent’s will sell everything they own to cover this.”
Every act of our help paves the path to Mairah’s Miracle.
You can see about donations by clicking below:
Go to the Quicket link for South Africa, or the GoFundMe if you happen to be from overseas.
The tiny solider shows us a resilience that those of us decades older than her should be inspired by. But at the same time, she shouldn’t have to be in that space of resilience. Our little Capetonian deserves to walk on the prom one day happily, enjoying the rush of the receding waves without worrying that a trip to the hospital might be on the day’s agenda. She deserves to be engulfed by the beauty of life’s magnitude. She deserves to travel and not just from doctor to doctor, but far and wide to see the world one day. She deserves to dance, not just for the joy of nurses, but for the joy of life. Yes, the joy of life. She deserves to know it not as a brief relief from strife, but in it’s entirety.
And if we, as the Cape {town} Etc community should be so fortunate to say we were able to help her in that- then what a life we have lived.
Some of her story.
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Picture: @mairahsmiracle