No parent ever expects to hear that their child has cancer.
But that is the reality for the parents of 17-year-old Keera Daniel, who was recently diagnosed with bone cancer.
The North Bay teen along with her mother Kerri Stiller, are living in Ottawa as the youngster undergoes treatment for osteosarcoma at CHEO, which required the partial amputation of one of her legs.
“It’s the same cancer as Terry Fox had,” said Stiller.
“It progressed pretty rapidly, so we got a new kind of surgery. A lot of people in North Bay aren’t familiar with it. It’s called rotationplasty. With that surgery she’ll be able to operate the prosthetic on its own, and she’ll have a great quality of life.”
See related: A local teen's courageous battle with cancer
Hearing about the family’s struggles, members of the North Bay Police Service Association, Nipissing District Paramedic Association, North Bay Fire and Emergency Services and the Police Service Board, all came together to provide some financial support.
Detective Constable Darcy Wall is the executive member of the North Bay Police Service Association.
“We heard about the situation several months ago, and actually made a donation at that time. Recently within the past week, there was an update in the media about how things had actually worsened for them. We just wanted to take part by making a donation,” said Wall.
“We have a charity account where we try to keep our donations local to family and services around North Bay that do require help. So once we saw this, we automatically wanted to do what we could to help.”
Keera and her mom were home to accept the donations and meet some of the emergency responders.
“All the support has already shown and all the prayers, it’s just been overwhelming. Everybody is rallying behind us which means so much to us as a family and to Keera herself. It’s helped us along our journey,” said Stiller.
Having that financial support is one less thing to worry about, leaving them to focus their attention on Keera.
“My husband stays home and works. We still have all our bills at home, and now we have accommodations staying at Ronald McDonald House, the gas, food, medication that’s not covered, things like the wheelchair, the crutches, we got a stair lift from the car wash that was put on by the paramedics. I don’t know what we would do without the support.”
This is just their third time home since beginning treatment.
“My husband travels up Thursday after work and leaves again Sunday to come back home. So he’s travelling twice a week to be with us weekends at CHEO. I had to leave my job. So this is helping with that loss of income. It’s been tough. It’s been tough on my husband, it’s been tough on us, but with all the support, it helps quite a bit,” said Stiller.
Keera has seven more rounds of chemo left to complete. The last treatment will be September 20th.
“Coming home depends on rehabilitation for her to learn how to walk. It all depends on how well she’s going to do through chemo and how extensive we can do the rehabilitation. We went to CHEO back on Monday and she got started getting her fitting for a prosthetic leg.”
A GoFundMe account has been started for the family.
“We get through it day by day. Keera’s been amazing through it all. She’s been very positive, and she gives me my strength. I said right from the beginning, cancer is a word, it’s not a sentence.”
