Thirteen-year-old Nikki Quinn was a promising softballer with dreams of playing for Australia before her cancer diagnosis changed the course of her teenage years.
“The doctor walked in with tears in his eyes, and I could see the fear in my mum's eyes, and he sat down and said ‘Nikki, you've got leukaemia’,” she said.
During her years-long treatment Ms Quinn said she suffered an allergic reaction to chemotherapy and was put into a medically induced coma.
At one stage her organs were shutting down, which left her life in the balance. While chemo could save her life, it could have also killed her.
Two years and three days after diagnosis Ms Quinn went into remission, but she said the effects of her treatment will stay with her forever.
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Now 26, she told SBS News how the experience impacted her physically and mentally.
“I've got avascular necrosis, which is dead bone essentially throughout my body. My lungs are pretty weak. My short term memory is sometimes not the best, so it was really hard with studying and things like that. I have post-traumatic stress, and survivor’s guilt,” she said.
Four out of five cancer survivors face life-long side effects from their treatment.
But an Australian professor has been working to find new treatments for childhood cancers without the long lasting side effects.
Professor Maria Kavallaris from the University of New South Wales and her team have been working on nanoparticle delivery, which only carries therapy to tumour cells while sparing normal cells.
The breakthrough has earned her a NSW Premier’s Prize for Science and Engineering in innovation and leadership.
“If we can improve survival while reducing those toxicities and improving the outcomes for those patients, that would be fantastic,” she said.
- Additional reporting by Marese O'Sullivan
