Ella Fraser is fighting for her young life.
In December, results from the 19-month-old’s blood work came back with a diagnosis no parents ever want to hear – cancer.
Ella is the daughter of Rebecca Martin-Fraser and Kent Fraser, originally from Pooles Corner.
The family now lives outside Halifax, but their hometown community hasn’t forgotten about them and has come together in a show of love and support by holding an upcoming fundraiser.
Erin Lundrigan, who has been Rebecca’s best friend for more than 20 years, said the next few months will be a tough road for the family.
The diagnosis, acute myeloid leukemia, is a cancer that’s not uncommon for children with Down syndrome, like Ella, Lundrigan said, adding the little girl is undergoing treatment at the IWK Children’s Hospital in Halifax.
“It’s a pretty intense, minimum six months of cancer treatments with chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, you know, as much as they can do to a child that small, basically.”
With so much time that will be required in hospital, Ella’s parents have taken indefinite leaves from their jobs.
Lundrigan hopes an upcoming fundraiser she’s planned will help.
“We’re sort of tied in terms of what we can do to help because we’re not physically there,” she told The Guardian recently. “We figured the best way to do it was to get everyone together and try to raise up as much money as we can, just to alleviate some of that stress.”
While there are often serious health issues associated with Down syndrome, Lundrigan said Ella was born without any, so this diagnosis “came as quite a shock to the family”.
Finding out the news of Ella’s diagnosis broke Lundrigan’s heart.
“It’s hard to talk about,” she said. “It’s sort of surreal, it’s just heartbreaking she has to go through that, and they have to watch their little girl be sick and worry about whether she’s going to get better or not. It’s hard.”
Lundrigan hasn’t set a fundraising goal and isn’t sure what to expect, but she’s optimistic.
“Really anything is great, anything is appreciated. I know that our community is very generous with their time and money so I sense it will be successful,” she said. “Everyone on P.E.I., we’re feeling helpless in the sense that we can’t fix it, but we’re wanting to do things to help to make it just a little bit easier as they go through this, because it’s a long process.”
Copper Bottom Brewing will host the fundraising event, Love for Ella, on March 31.
There will be a silent auction and live music from 4-10 p.m. with musicians, including Andrew G. MacDonald, Carter MacLellan and Norman Stewart.
One dollar from every pint of beer sold will be donated to the cause. Organizers will also be accepting donations throughout the evening.
Donations can also be made through a GoFundMe account that’s been set up at Gofundme.com/love-for-ella.
