Aurora adds to Hospital’s Appeal
To mark the 90th Good Friday Appeal, we are calling for people to share their stories, like Aurora Fei, who celebrated her 4th birthday while in hospital for cancer treatment.
Aurora Fei is celebrating every day as she takes her first steps in a cancer-free future.
After two years of treatment at the Royal Children’s Hospital, with more than 300 days spent on the ward, the four-year-old has started the new year with news she is in remission.
“The doctors have said after the surgery it is totally finished,” mum Tianmei Lu said. “It has been so hard. Our family is so happy.”
Ms Lu and husband Frank Fei noticed their then 2-year-old’s stomach had become abnormally protruded.
Scans revealed Aurora’s abdomen had been taken over by two sizeable tumours.
“I was so shocked. In my family, no cases of the cancer. So why Aurora?” Ms Lu said.
Aurora endured multiple rounds of high-dose chemotherapy to shrink the neuroblastoma before surgery before Christmas to remove them.
Her latest hospital stay — in which she celebrated her 4th birthday yesterday — was so she could receive immunotherapy to keep an ongoing attack mounted against any new cancer cells that could appear.
It is stories like Aurora’s that the Good Friday Appeal is calling on Victorians to tell in the lead-up to the annual Easter appeal.
As part of this year’s 90th appeal, GFA director Rebecca Cowan said it was looking for current and former patients, staff, volunteers and fundraisers to share their connections to the hospital.
Originally published in the Herald Sun, 1 February 2021
Words: Brigid O’Connell
Photo: Tim Carrafa