A brave teenager has returned to the classroom – just two days after finishing a gruelling six-month course of treatment for a rare and deadly tumour.
Dion Yates was diagnosed with a slipped disc, which later turned out to be Ewing’s sarcoma – a cancer of the bone and soft tissue that affects just 30 children in the UK every year.
By then, the 15-year-old’s tumour was so big it had spread to her spine, womb, bladder, bowel and pelvis.
But the courageous teenager, who has vowed to beat the disease, said: “When they told me I had cancer it was a relief because at least they knew what it was and they could start to believe me, as I was in so much pain for so long.”
Since April she has needed more than 60 pints of blood and seven operations. She also endured six months of intensive cancer treatment that was so potent she was warned it would leave her confined to a wheelchair for two years.
But against all odds, Dion, from Lossiemouth, was back on her feet within eight weeks.
She will now need hip replacement surgery because the treatment has destroyed the bone.
But the tumour, which spanned from her tummy button to the top of her thigh, has shrunk by more than 50%.
And on Friday, just two days after arriving home from her six-month stint in hospital, she went back to school.
Dion, who has lost all her hair as a result of the cancer drugs, said: “It was amazing. I really missed all my friends. It’s so good to be back.
“I can’t wait to finish my treatment because I am looking forward to going on holiday to Florida and swimming with dolphins.”
Mum Kerry, 36, said her daughter had been “amazing” throughout her ordeal.
“She never lets anything get her down. She just gets on with it,” she said.
“Even when she lost all her hair she said, ‘oh well, it will save me having to do it in the mornings’.
“She has never once asked, ‘why me?’. She just takes it all in her stride. She’s an inspiration.”
Dion’s nightmare began last November when she started complaining about pains in her leg.
Her mother took her back and forth to her local GP for six months, during which time they was told she had everything from damaged ligaments to a slipped disc.
But on a visit to her dad Robbie’s house in Middlesbrough, just weeks after her 15th birthday, her condition took a turn for the worse.
She could hardly walk and it was only after being admitted to accident and emergency that she was given an x-ray to see what was causing her pain.
Dion was then sent for an MRI scan, which confirmed she had a deadly tumour pressing against her sciatic nerve.
And just a day later she was being treated in a specialist cancer unit in Newcastle, where she has spent the last six months.
Dion, who has a sister Jacy, 18, has endured nine rounds of gruelling chemotherapy at the city’s Royal Victoria Infirmary and six weeks of radiotherapy at the Freeman Hospital.
She was also entered into a trial of a new drug designed to aid bone repair and ultimately reduce the chances of the cancer returning.
She has spent weeks in isolation and has needed dozens of blood transfusions, receiving at least three pints of blood every three weeks.
She has also needed two platelet transfusions, which helps the blood to clot and stop her bruising easily.
Dion still faces gruelling chemotherapy every three weeks until her treatment programme finishes in February – a month before she turns 16 – when she hopes to be told the cancer is gone.
The youngster has proved such an inspiration that locals in her hometown staged fundraising events to send her on a day-trip to London to enjoy the sights including the London Eye and Madame Tussauds.
Dion and her family are now raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust and the two hospitals which are helping her through her ordeal and have so far collected more than £10,000.
To donate visit
https://www.justgiving.com/robbie-round
.