Hello - meet Eleanor. Ella, Ella-bean, Ella-jo, Little Miss Sunshine.
She is a vibrant and adventurous 11 year old with a huge heart and a sunny personality.
Ella loves singing and dancing, playing cello and is in love with performing in musicals. She is always singing and sharing stories – it’s easy to pick her spunky voice out in a crowded room (it’s one of a kind full of life and love). She loves therapeutic horseback riding, science and art club. Ella loves to paint & draw, she loves her books and her kitty cat. She is absorbing the world around her and embracing all things beautiful.
Ella has dedicated herself to others who are going through similar experiences. She designed 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'Starfish' socks to give to kids in the hospital and raise funds for her Ella’s Love Heals A.L.L. hero fund. She spends the winter collecting food for the local food shelter. She donated more than 12+ inches of her hair to Wigs For Kids while raising money. Her future plans include designing and sewing clothes for sick kids, and perhaps even studying to become a nurse.
Eleanor was diagnosed on September 2nd, 2012 at six months old with High-Risk Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The 4 year Event Free Survival (EFS) of Infant ALL, according to the largest study of its kind is 47%. But Ella is fighting with all of her might. Cure rates for Infant Leukemias have not increased in the last ten years. There has been no progress to boast, there’s no acknowledgement in rallying calls for cancer research - the opposite actually. The little ones need heroes to help fund research to find new ways to treat them, to help them live through the intense treatments and to help them stay in remission.
A recent study shows that because of the treatments they had as kids, more than 95% of survivors will have a chronic health problem and 80% will have severe or life-threatening conditions.
Because of the treatments Ella had while her body and brain were starting to develop, she will face all kinds of life-long side effects, including life-threatening ones. Including neurocognitive functioning problems associated with memory and executive functioning, attention, processing speed and learning retention resulting from the chemotherapies. Eleanor is considered high-risk for cardiomyopathy, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoporosis, osteopenia, avascular necrosis, hemorrhagic cystitis, and secondary malignancies, including leukemias and melanomas.
So in addition to finding cures, we believe that research also needs to focus on preventing the lifelong damage to little bodies and brains that are just developing.
We are so lucky to still be able to bask in her light. After eleven long years, we know that her medicines continue to work and are giving us more time with her. She is in remission. Please join our fight – Eleanor’s fight – to help children in their battle against cancer and the life-long side effects they will face. Fight Ella, fight!
Thank you for supporting Ella and the more than 300,000 kids worldwide who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. By sharing the gifts of your time, talent and money with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, you're supporting hope and research to give all kids with cancer a better chance for a cure.
#Fight Ella, fight #WhoWillYouSave #ResearchIsHope #StBaldricks #EllasLoveHealsALL
If you would like to see more about Ella you can find her hero page here: https://www.stbaldricks.org/hero-funds/ellasloveheals and on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/HelpingEleanorFightCancer
