Why we are choosing to fly into COVID hotspot with sick child

An Adelaide family is preparing to do the unthinkable and jet their three-year-old into the heart of a place still overwhelmed by coronavirus.

Matt and Brooke Stephenson with Hannah, 5, and Sophie, 3, who is being treated for stage 4 neuroblastoma. Picture: Mike Burton

An Adelaide family is preparing to do the unthinkable and fly with their chronically ill young daughter into a coronavirus epicentre.

The Stephensons are unable to wait for the pandemic to ease as Sophie, 3, has stage 4 neuroblastoma and a drug administered as part of a clinical trial overseas is likely their daughter’s only chance of life.

Sophie is currently undergoing daily radiotherapy at Royal Adelaide Hospital after devastating news just before Christmas that the cancer the family hoped she had finally beaten had returned, this time to her brain.

The family is in the final stages of negotiation with two hospitals – one in Texas, in the US, and the other in Barcelona, Spain, to do the 10-week radioimmunotherapy treatment through a port put in Sophie’s brain.

Sophie, Brooke, Matt and Hannah Stephenson. Picture: Mike Burton

They hope to be overseas to start treatment by the middle to end of February.

Sophie was diagnosed in March 2019 after her parents, Brooke, a former nurse, and Matthew, a medical scientist, became concerned by her nose bleeds and bruises under her eyes.

After more than a year of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, Sophie was given the short-lived all-clear in August.

“When the phone rang at 5pm, among all the chaos at that time of night when you have children, I just knew something was wrong,” Mrs Stephenson said.

“Matt got off the phone and said, ‘It is on her brain’ and I just burst into tears.”

Sophie’s doctors agree the overseas treatment is her best option. “Because it is such a rare thing for a child to have this illness and then to relapse, the studies on (the drug’s) use are only based on about 80 children,” Mrs Stephenson said.

“But the results show it is more than promising – in fact, very successful.

“Because you’ll only get a child every year or two years in Australia with what Sophie has, there are just not the numbers for the drug to be available here.”

“(COVID-19) is definitely adding to our stress and so, too, the fear of not being able to get back but we have to do what we have to do.”

The Stephensons sold their home and small acreage at Gumeracha when Sophie became ill and are currently staying with family at Burnside.

Mrs Stephenson said the hardest part was that her daughter “can’t just be a normal kid” and do activities such as going to the beach.

A GoFundMe page, Sophie’s Fight Against Neuroblastoma , has been set up to help the family pay for the trip and treatment, estimated to cost $300,000.