12 year old Greta has had some big challenges and must travel for surgical opinions and care. She was diagnosed with a difficult to treat bone cancer (Ewing’s Sarcoma) in her spine at the age of 5 and underwent radiation in Boston and a year of chemotherapy. We are from British Columbia, but if we hadn’t travelled for care she would not have been able to survive - the Aeroplan points we raised in 2015 helped her travel to get the care she needed at the time.

Greta’s spine isn’t now collapsing from her previous cancer, radiation, and previous spine surgeries that had removed parts of her vertebrae.

Recently (March 2021) she underwent half of a planned 2 day surgery that was supposed to be done over 3 days, but tragically had a spinal cord injury while she was in between surgeries on the ward at BC Children’s, waiting for the next surgery to be done. Unfortunately she is now too high risk to complete the surgery in Vancouver and has been left with considerable pain and disability. She was paralyzed from the chest down and in ICU, hospitalized for months this spring (2021) and has had a long road to recovery of mobility - she keeps on going though and we want to do what we can to help her.

She loves life and is making the most out of trying to get better. Her family has traveled to Boston for necessary treatments that are unavailable in Canada, and will have to travel again very soon to Texas to see specialists in spinal surgery and reconstruction.

We are hoping to raise enough points to fly Greta and her mom to Texas, Toronto, and Boston. If any extra points are raised, the rest of the family might be able to come for some of the trips making it more of a ‘holiday’ for Greta even though this is all very hard work for her.

Travelling isn’t easy for Greta now since her recent spinal cord injury and any points to assist with traveling will help immensely. We would have travelled earlier this spring with her but she wasn’t stable enough to fly. We’ve never traveled in expensive seats before but this might be the only option since Greta’s recent surgery making it difficult or impossible to sit up for so long.

Thank you so much for helping us get Greta the care she needs. We are hoping we can make a long term plan for her spine that will help her keep living life to its fullest.

Thank you for your love and support. xo
#gretasteam
#lovelife