2006 Feature picture story - First

Romain Blanquart

Maddie’s Last Days

In October 2005 Maddie, 6, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Ewings Sarcoma. She went through seven rounds of chemo, a stem cell transplant and had three ribs removed because the cancer was in her bones. Maddie was cancer free after a year of struggle, standing a fifty fifty chance of getting cancer again in the next two years. Two months later the cancer was back with a vengance. Doctors found out cancer had spread through her right lung, her kidney and her liver, giving her a few weeks to live. Her Father Paul wanted to give her a normal life and help her do everything she wanted in the short time she had left to live. Maddie had lost her mother a few years earlier.