Pride of Australia winner Chelsea George’s courageous battle in the face of aggressive cancer

FOR much of her life Chelsea George has been known as the girl with cancer but her parents hope this is the year that courage will define their daughter.

• Our heroes walk tall with pride

FOR much of her life, Chelsea George has been known as the girl with cancer, but her parents hope this is the year that courage will redefine their daughter.

The 10-year-old is undergoing radical treatment in Sydney to fight the aggressive leukaemia that has resisted chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants since the Murray Bridge girl was diagnosed on New Year’s Eve 2008.

Melony and Chelsea George the day before the pair flew to Sydney to try and save Chelsea’s life through radical leukaemia treatment.

Her mother Melony said Chelsea was one of just three children in Australia being administered blinatumobab — an immunotherapy drug targeted at acute lymphoblastic leukaemia — in a final attempt to extend her life.

“This is it, it’s the last roll of the dice,” Mrs George, 34, said from Sydney’s Westmead Hospital where her daughter has been since August 24 and will remain for at least another five months.

“She knows this is our last chance at finishing this ... she knows this is it and she might not pull through this and that death is a real possibility.”

Chelsea George’s brother Bailey has twice donated bone marrow cells to his sister in her battle with leukaemia. He is pictured here on her first admission to hospital in 2012 for her first bone marrow transplant. Picture: Melony George

Pharmaceutical company Amgen is supplying the drug to Chelsea on compassionate grounds because conventional chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants have not worked.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is an extremely rare blood cancer characterised by the overproduction of immature white blood cells, which crowd bone marrow and prevent it from making normal blood cells.

Blinatumobab directs the immune system’s T-cells to proteins expressed by mutant white blood cells, triggering the T-cells to destroy them.

In clinical studies on adults in the US and Europe, the drug has had a 30 per cent success rate in killing off cancers for a limited time.

It has never been trialled on children in Australia.

Bailey and Chelsea George in March last year on the day of Chelsea’s second bone marrow transplant. Picture: Melony George

Chelsea’s courage and optimism earned her the Child of Courage medal in News Corp’s Pride of Australia awards on Wednesday.

Her medal was accepted by her father Tony, 44, and brother Bailey, 7, who has twice been a bone marrow donor for his sister.

Tony George with his son Bailey — picking up the Child of Courage Medal for Chelsea George. Picture: Simon Cross

Tomorrow Chelsea will finish her first 28-day cycle of blinatumobab before oncologists perform a bone marrow test a week later to ascertain if it’s controlling the cancer.

Without any treatment, Chelsea would have just months to live.

Mrs George said through tears that her daughter continued to amaze her.

“She doesn’t sit there and say ‘I’m sick, I’ve had enough’,” she said.

“She keeps going. You look at her and wonder how she does it because any adult would’ve given in by now.

“But she doesn’t want to be known as the girl with cancer. Perhaps this year Chelsea will be the girl who won the Pride of Australia.”

The family has set up a fundraising page, www. mycause.com.au/page/ 110127/chelseasangels, to help with travel expenses so her ­father and brother can visit her.