Family's American mission to save daughter

Jan 8 2012 by Neil McKay, Sunday Sun

THE parents of a seriously ill toddler flew off with her to New York yesterday in a last-ditch bid to save her life.

Sadie Rose Clifford, aged two, has already undergone weeks of gruelling chemotherapy and operations in England to fight the childhood cancer Neuroblastoma.

But her parents Darren and Katie have been told her only remaining hope is treatment at the Sloan-Kettering cancer centre in New York.

Darren, a self-employed joiner and Katie, a dental nurse, flew out with Sadie yesterday and are planning to spend between six and nine months there - the time it will take for her to receive the treatment and drugs she needs.

The couple, from Knaresborough, North Yorks, are staying in family accommodation 10 minutes’ walk from the hospital funded by customers of McDonalds fast food chain through their Ronald McDonald House Charity but need £500,000 to pay for Sadie’s treatment and their accommodation.

Katie said: “Sadie has survived front line treatment here in the UK, which has included an initial 70 days of chemotherapy in November 2010, major surgery in February 2011 to remove her tumour which was above her left kidney and wrapped around the main artery in the body, her aorta.

“This was a life-threatening operation but she came out fighting and was home after just over a week in hospital.

“Since July Sadie endured yet more gruelling chemotherapy and after an MRI scan at the end of the six- week course of treatment to destroy any microscopic cells. Results showed the tumour had in fact grown.”