Buxton mum appeals for birthday cards for ‘high-spirited’ four-year-old girl with rare cancer

Rachael Hodgkinson’s daughter Isla Mansfield was diagnosed with Multi-system Langerhans cells histiocytosis two years ago.

The painful condition - which attacked her liver, spleen, gut, skin, bone and blood and caused fluid around her heart - was known to have affected only one other UK child as badly at the time.

Over the last two years the ‘high-spirited’ youngster has endured 120 hours of intensive chemotherapy as well as ‘countless’ blood transfusions.

Little fighter Isla, who spent her third and fourth birthdays at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, is now undergoing another 18 months of chemotherapy to bring the incurable illness under control.

However if the latest course of chemotherapy is not successful the tot - who is ‘always smiling’ - may need a bone marrow transplant.

Mum Rachael and dad David Mansfield are ‘praying’ their little girl will be celebrating her fifth birthday at home this year.

However Rachael, 38, said she wanted to do something special to cheer the four-year-old up, adding: “we hope to be at home but we just don’t know where the next few months are heading”.

She said: “We just want people to send her a card so she’ll know when she’s older how much support we’ve had from people in the community - and it’ll cheer her up so much.

“She’s always smiling. Isla’s so used to all this now - it’s the life she’s always known.

“She’s very high-spirited and keeps us on our toes and when she’s well enough she’s full of it - smiling and happy all the time.”

Mum-of-four Rachael told how - though Isla was stronger now - the illness had turned her whole world ‘upside down’.

She said: “Nothing is as you knew it anymore - all the plans you made for the future get put on hold while you focus on getting your child better.”

However retail worker Rachael, who has taken a year off work to look after Isla, said the support the family had received from the wider community in Buxton had been ‘fantastic’.

She said: “The kindness of strangers offering help has been amazing - we’ve had so many messages from people asking if they can do anything to help.”

Speaking about Isla’s current treatment Rachael said: “It’s never been plain sailing - nothing has gone to plan.

“But we have to hope and pray this does the job or she’ll have to have a bone marrow transplant.

“We just want to make this birthday special for her with everything that’s going on.”

Isla celebrates her fifth birthday on July 10.

You can get a birthday card to her by dropping it off at The Corner Cupboard cafe on Buxton’s Market Place, Gingers sandwich shop in Fairfield or by post to 6 Crossings Avenue, Chapel-en-leFrith, High Peak, SK23 9TE.