Joel and Marley Michel of Regina are grateful their baby boy could get chemotherapy treatments, right here at home, at our Children’s Cancer Clinic in the Regina General Hospital. Baby Elijah was diagnosed with cancer in his kidney before he was six months old. He just turned one in in mid-September 2024.
While pregnant with Elijah, Marley was told an ultrasound scan showed his kidneys were enlarged. When Elijah was born, another ultrasound showed his kidneys were still enlarged, but it wasn’t until he was three months old that a tumor was discovered in one of his kidneys.
Doctors hoped that early chemotherapy treatments would reduce the tumor’s size, but ultimately it was decided that surgery was necessary to remove the stricken kidney. Around the same time, results from genetic testing revealed Elijah has Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, a congenital growth disorder, which can also lead to an increased risk of certain childhood cancers.
Baby Elijah required 15 weeks of chemo treatments, both before and after his surgery. The Michel family would typically visit our Children’s Cancer Clinic on a Wednesday, for blood work to determine if he could receive his chemo the next day. They would repeat this every three weeks.
Having our Children’s Cancer Clinic so close to home made the situation easier for the Michel family to bear. It meant they could wake up at home on the days of Elijah’s chemo treatments in Regina, rather than travel to another centre the day before. It reduced the amount of time Joel was off work when he joined Marley and Elijah during his treatments. It also meant the world to them to have the support of their friends and family who live nearby.
Elijah was a week shy of his first birthday when he received his last chemo treatment. During that treatment, Elijah smiled while sitting in his mother’s lap so nurses could give him his pre-treatment medication. While he received his chemotherapy through a port in his chest, he often babbled as he wandered with a toy in his hand, carrying it by the nurses’ station and winning the hearts of every adult he encountered.
In 2022, Hospitals of Regina Foundation invested $1.5 million to create our Children’s Cancer Clinic, a child-friendly cancer treatment space at the Regina General Hospital. Each year, approximately 20 children and teens from Regina and southern Saskatchewan are diagnosed with cancer and about 100 receive treatment, monitoring or follow-up care in our clinic.
The Foundation has now committed an additional $2.8 million to create a pharmacy clean room, a specialized space where pharmacists will develop personalized chemotherapy for each child receiving treatment in Regina.
This upgrade will help our doctors deliver treatments based on the child’s bloodwork the day of treatment and the molecular profile of their cancer. Personalizing treatment in this way lessens harmful side effects and reduces damage to healthy cells.
This investment in our Children’s Cancer Clinic is a part of the Foundation’s on-going commitment to invest in the best pediatric care possible for the children of southern Saskatchewan. “Being able to personalize cancer treatment through customized chemotherapy gives our kids the best results possible”, says Dino Sophocleous, president and CEO, Hospitals of Regina Foundation. “We are committed to supporting the best pediatric care in the country, right here at home”.