Mia Young Charity walk

We at Treorchy Fire Station have combined forces with Treorchy Junior School in a joint effort to raise funds and awareness for Mia Young and her family.

We will be carrying out a sponsored walk from Pontypridd Fire station to Treorchy Fire station on 13th July. We will be walking in full kit and pulling “BIG RED” from start to finish.

On completion of the walk, there will be a BBQ held at Treorchy fire Station courtesy of Cwm Farm Shop. Also a chance for the children to view the new station and fire trucks.

There will be several stops along the way for children, parents, and families to join in. The walk is also open to the community, so please come and show your support.

Mia’s Story.

A beautiful brave young girl, Mia Young was just aged 5 years old when she was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia. It is a rare form of cancer, with only 750 cases diagnosed per year in the UK.

The first step in knowing there was an issue came after, Mia failed a school eye test which prompted to book a follow up appointment for further investigation. Geraint Jones, optometrist director at Specsavers Treorchy, conducted Mia’s examination and noticed an unusual appearance to the blood vessels near the optic nerve at the back of the one eye.

He immediately referred Mia to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, where - after numerous tests - medical staff confirmed her diagnosis of leukaemia. It was found that her white cell count was 460,000 per cubic millimeter – estimated at between 50 to 100 times higher than normal in a child.

The diagnosis came as a particular shock to the family and medical staff, as chronic myeloid leukaemia is predominantly found in over 60s.

For the last several years Mia and her family have been supported by the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital in Cardiff and Bristol.

During this time, they suffered more devastating news, Mia’s mother, Alison had been diagnosed with breast cancer who became very ill. Alison had intense course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and also undergone surgery, Alison had a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy and is now thankfully on the road to recovery.

Mia has spent the last 24 months on chemotherapy but had the heartbreaking news that the chemotherapy is no longer working, Mia was given a trial of new chemotherapy, in hopes this will shrink the cancer cells. Mia underwent a bone marrow transplant, with the donor coming from holland. We really need Mia’s immunity to return to kill off the cancer cells which have returned, there will be no more transplant top ups as the donors blood caused Mia to have autoimmune problems as the blood contained antibodies.

The next steps.. The doctors are currently researching new TKI drugs which is a chemotherapy drug that targets the cancer, the one they looked at isn’t available in the UK, its only in America at the moment, The doctors are looking at another one, but it may come at a cost as you need to be in a certain category to receive funding and we don’t know if Mia is eligible for it as they haven’t been given to children before.

Please if you can, please donate, it’s for a very, very special family who had gone through so much trauma.

Thank you

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