Ray of hope
Luck has moved through the lives of Sydney couple Mina and Rob Caterjian in a most capricious way. They struggled to conceive and suffered several miscarriages over eight years until they welcomed a brown-eyed daughter with a loving and curious personality. For 11 months, their lives felt full of happiness and good fortune, until fate turned again and they received the grave news their little girl, Ellie, had a rare and aggressive cancer. The doctors were despairing that there was nothing they could do when their luck changed again: Ellie was accepted into a new research program using DNA sequencing to develop treatment targeted to her cancer’s specific genetic mutation. It was still a long shot at a cure, but for Rob and Mina it was hope. The Zero Childhood Cancer Program had just opened and Ellie was among the first acutely sick Australian children to be included.
“Had Ellie been born a year prior, this wouldn’t have been available,” says Mina. “As she was leaving the ICU the doctor said,
