Support Chase's battle against cancer

To friends and families of Kim and Ryan, and anyone else reading this, some of you may already be aware of the family's recent announcement regarding their two-year-old son, Chase, of his cancer diagnosis in July and their journey since in a recent Facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/reel/1264744670898200).

For those who have not been privy to their struggles from the start, the family's way of life took a turn for the worse in early June. Starting from noticing a visible change in Chase's left eye, it was later realised to be a consequence of a full retinal detachment, which resulted in the enucleation of his left eye on the 30th of June. Anyone can imagine that such a hard decision would have been extremely difficult for Kim and Ryan to have to make for their child, but given the inability to restore meaningful sight and being at risk of further complications arising from retaining an unhealthy eye, enucleation was the lesser of two evils.

Throughout this phase, cancer was never really considered a high-probable clinical diagnosis due to its rare and unusual presentation of the tumour. While the family was still reeling from the loss of his left eye, a cancer diagnosis (retinoblastoma) was promptly delivered within a week after Chase's eye enucleation, and due to the aggressive behaviours of the cancer, it was found that it had spread beyond the eye and was not entirely removed.

Retinoblastoma (RB) is an extremely rare childhood cancer, estimated to occur in ~0.005% of live births (1 in 17,500), and the diagnosis came out of left field for the family. Furthermore, the genetic makeup of Chase's RB, classified as a de novo germline mutation (founder of the hereditary RB1 gene in the family line), affects ~15% of childhood RB cases and leaves him as an RB carrier for the rest of his life. On top of facing a 50% likelihood for his offspring to inherit this gene (via natural birth, preventable via IVF), Chase is also more susceptible to tumours forming in his currently healthy eye, along with a heightened risk for several secondary cancers that may emerge throughout his life.

Prior to the announcement, Chase had just finished four cycles of highly intensive chemotherapy spanning over three months. Without a doubt, this challenge, which Chase and his family quietly overcame, would be unimaginable to most. While the chemotherapy program is now completed, the next phase of Chase's treatment plan will be delivered in the United States (Jacksonville, Florida), encompassing a 2-month radiation program at the UF Health Proton Therapy Institute. At a high level, this requires Chase to be put under general anaesthetic from Monday to Friday for five weeks straight, with the treatment likely to leave him feeling nauseous, sickly or tired, with sore/inflammation around the treated eye.

This brings us to the reason behind the launch of this GoFundMe campaign.

While the medical treatment, part of the accommodation, and flights (for Chase and one parent only) will be covered under Australia's Medical Treatment Overseas Program (MTOP), the family's financial position will be burdened by further loss of income from time off work, which would normally cover for recurring expenses such as mortgage & car repayment, insurances, and bills.

Additionally, the softer AUD/USD exchange rate and higher cost of living pressures further jeopardise the family's out-of-pocket expenses. The financial impact on Chase and his family is estimated at around AUD$16,000-20,000.

We have been motivated to kickstart this GoFundMe program, garnering as much support from wherever possible, to alleviate as much of the family's financial stress as possible.

We have set a goal of $10,000 wherein all of the proceeds will be directed towards any out-of-pocket expenses, with some examples outlined below:

Among the difficulties that Chase has already gone through, we can all agree that he is highly deserving of endless positive experiences to outshine the grey clouds of countless hospital visits, painful medical procedures, missing out on childcare (especially given that he is a little social butterfly), and most notably, the down and sickly days following his chemotherapy treatments.

At the end of the day, Chase has been an extremely courageous boy throughout all this, and we want to try and support him and his family as much as we possibly can.

Thank you for taking the the time to read Chase's story.