Nicole Forst, suffering from blood cancer, is once again going through a marathon from clinic to clinic – once a week to Freiburg, twice to Homburg. The seven-year-old has not been allowed to go to daycare since January. So-called Car-T-Cell Therapy is currently being used on her. The father explains that this is a new type of cancer immunotherapy. The leukocytes were filtered from the girl’s blood for two days. Because stem cells can also be separated in the blood, not just in the bone marrow.
“Nicole is very sad because she is not allowed to play with other children,” says father Daniel Forst. For four months, the girl with leukemia has been living in isolation with her family. If she was at high risk anyway because of her illness, her situation has worsened due to the corona. “We just hope we don’t infect them,” says Forst, concerned.
It’s an emotional ups and downs that the family is exposed to. It looked good three weeks ago, says the father. At the moment everything is in the balance again. “Your immune system has been brought back to zero,” says Forst, who hopes that at least another stem cell therapy will not be necessary. Even if Nicole had a donor in her little sister.
Nicole was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago. Since then, the blonde girl has been known in Pirmasens: Regenbogenkinderhilfe supported the family financially, and the students at Landgraf-Ludwig-Realschule were looking for a bone marrow donor through DKMS.
Now the children of the Kita butterfly group are doing handicrafts to collect for Nicole. The proceeds from the donation are intended as a small bonus for the Forst family, reports daycare manager Martina Schäfer. “We were all happy that the treatment went so well and we are shocked because she has this relapse,” she reports. The girl is so brave and positive, she thinks, and hopes that Nicole will manage to return to the butterfly group before she starts school.
Due to the Corona regulations, however, the bazaar should not be public. The proceeds benefit the family. However, it is not a call for donations to pay for medication, as some believe. The therapies are covered by the health insurance. “We should have a nice trip when Nicole is healthy again,” explains the father. “Because if you do nonsense with her, you can keep her happy.”
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