Party for an angel: Brave Valentina celebrates birthday amid terminal cancer battle

An Adelaide family has revealed the heartbreakingly beautiful reason they’re celebrating their daughter Valentina’s birthday months early this year.

Valentina Mcgee-Champion, 2, has Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a cancer in her brain and spine. She only has weeks to live. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Valentina Mcgee-Champion’s third birthday party will be the biggest celebration she has ever known, with everything a little girl could want – a bouncy castle and bubble and smoke machines.

It will also, in a sense, be what every kid impatiently waiting their big day wants, to have it brought forward to cut down that unbearable wait.

But there is a tragic reason why Valentina’s birthday will be held months early.

It’s because it will be her last, as she can’t hold on until the real day in June.

She has a mutated gene known as TP53, which makes carriers much more susceptible to cancer, in her case a rare form of brain cancer.

As she may have just weeks to live, it means for some guests at the party, which her family says will have “all the trimmings” for their “firecracker”, it will be the last time they ever see her.

Valentina Mcgee-Champion has Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a cancer in her brain and spine. She only has weeks to live. Picture: Keryn Stevens

It is a time of unbearable heartache for Valentina’s parents Carly Champion and Aaron Mcgee, who lost Adrian – Mr Mcgee’s son and Ms Champion’s stepson – as a result of the same gene when he was 12.

Ms Champion was already pregnant with Valentina when they learned Adrian was a carrier of TP53.

“It’s like, when am (I) going to wake up from the nightmare?” Ms Champion said.

Valentina was 16 months old when doctors found a mass in her brain called choroid plexus carcinoma.

“We did six months of really, really high dose chemotherapy,” Ms Champion said.

Last June, all signs were good when Valentina went into remission. The family was ecstatic – their bubbly, smiley little girl was cancer-free.

“We certainly thought we would be in that percentage of it not coming back,” Ms Champion said. “However, that wasn’t our case.”

In December, doctors found “a little spot” on Valentina’s spine and a huge amount of fluid on her brain.

Within three weeks, she had half a dozen cancerous masses growing in her brain and down her spine.

Now she has just weeks, maybe months, left.

Valentina Mcgee-Champion has Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a cancer in her brain and spine. Picture: Supplied by family

Valentina Mcgee-Champion has Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a cancer in her brain and spine. Picture: Supplied by family

“She fought so hard and fought it off and was in remission,” Ms Champion said.

“Then to be hit with her having her cancer back and finding out how really bad it is and how there’s nothing that we can do to kind of help, that is just absolutely devastating, completely heartbreaking.

“And there’s no other words that can explain the feeling.”

When The Advertiser visited Valentina at her aunt’s house in Blakeview, Valentina answered the door with an ear-to-ear grin.

“Come play with me,” she said, reaching out her hand to lead us to the backyard.

She grabbed a toy hammer and box and started patiently hammering toy nails into a wooden plank.

When we sat and spoke with her family, Valentina brought biscuits and checked in to make sure everyone was OK.

“She’s perfect, isn’t she?” her mum said.

Her family is determined to give their angel “all of the best experiences” they can.

In between regular trips to the hospital, Valentina is growing monarch butterflies, swimming, going to the movies and visiting Adelaide Zoo and the SA Museum.

Valentina Mcgee-Champion has Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a cancer in her brain and spine. Picture: Supplied by family

Valentina Mcgee-Champion has Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a cancer in her brain and spine. Picture: Supplied by family

While they are desperate to take advantage of every moment, Valentina has some bad days when she can’t stop vomiting.

Sometimes, a morning in hospital turns into multiple days.

“You take minute by minute, you don’t hour by hour,” her aunt Bec Jones said.

“You don’t think (by) the age of two you’re going to need to be preparing a funeral.”

Ms Champion said: “There’s nothing else you can do about it – so accept it.

“You have your moment of anger, sadness, whatever you might be feeling at the time and then get over it.

“We either sit and be really upset about it and ... have all sorts of feelings about it and be really angry at the world. Like ‘why’?

“But then you know that doesn’t get you anywhere and it doesn’t make it any better and easier.”

The family is trying to raise funds for Valentina’s “final wishes” and eventual funeral. You can donate here.

“Carly is an absolutely brilliant mum and she does whatever she can for Valentina but unfortunately we’re not millionaires,” Ms Jones said.

Ms Champion has started an Instagram page to document Valentina’s last moments.

“As a parent you want her to experience as much as she can before the time comes,” she said.

Originally published as Party for an angel: Brave Valentina celebrates birthday amid terminal cancer battle