Monday, November 28, 2005

Dream come true for Bethany

CANCER-BATTLING youngster Bethany Keenan is going on a dream holiday swimming with dolphins at Disneyworld in Florida, thanks to a charity for children with serious illnesses.
The charity Dreams Come True is paying for the five-year-old and mum Kay Blythe to travel to the United States for a fortnight at the end of April.


Ms Blythe, of Tile Hill, said Bethany, who has just completed a year in remission from neuroblastoma, a rare type of cancer, could not wait to go.

The courageous youngster, a pupil at Templars Primary School, in Tile Hill, was given just a 30 per cent chance of survival when she was diagnosed in August 2003.

She underwent a four-hour operation at the Princess of Wales Children's Hospital, Birmingham, in December 2003 to remove the remainder of her tumour.

Ms Blythe, 40, said: "It's two years since we wrote to Dreams Come True saying Bethany would like to swim with dolphins and we can't believe it's now going to happen.

"Bethany has been through so much and come through it all tremendously well. She deserves this extra special holiday."

Bethany will be joined by dad Craig Keenan, 34, twin sister Mollie, and sister Aimee, 13, who attends Tile Hill Wood School and Language College, in Nutbrook Avenue, Tile Hill.
More than £40,000 has been raised since her diagnosis to pay for treatment for Bethany in America, should the treatment she has received in Britain not work.

Bethany has the same condition as Jordan Accardi, aged four, of Cannon Park, Coventry, who went to New York for treatment after Evening Telegraph readers helped raise cash.

* Dreams Come True is a UK children's charity helping terminally ill children and youngsters with cancer fulfil their dreams.

* Nueroblastoma affects the cells dealing with the development of the nervous system and fewer than 100 UK children develop it each year.

Quick "Facts about Dolphins"