Family appeals to fly stranded cancer-stricken daughter home from Mexico

A Scots family has issued an emotional appeal for funds to fly their cancer-stricken daughter back from Mexico before she dies.

Olivia Downie, from Fraserburgh, was diagnosed with stage four Neuroblastoma three years ago - the aggressive form of childhood cancer attacks the nervous system and can affect the lungs, skin and brain.

Her family raised thousands of pounds in order to travel to Mexico for “last ditch” treatment to try and save the youngster.

Following her first cycle of treatment, seven-year-old Olivia took a turn for the worse and doctors are now refusing her permission to fly back to Scotland without specialist medical support - which could cost up to £100,000.

The family are now at Olivia’s bedside at the Angeles hospital in Tijuana, where she is now stranded.

Her father Stephen Downie said: “She was quite ill when we came over, in quite a lot of pain. It got worse and she started one cycle of treatment and then a few days later she was sort of unconscious.

“She was rushed to hospital and it turned out she had fluid in her lungs. They had to drain her lungs and the prognosis is very bad now. I think we are looking at trying to get her fit to fly home and just hopefully we can get her home before anything bad happens.

“She’s in intensive care. She’s critical. She’s basically on a life support machine. The machine is helping her to breath and it’s not good. We don’t even know how we will get her home. That’s the biggest worry now.

“She’s unconscious. She has a drain pipe coming out of her left side to drain the fluid that is continuously going into her lungs.

“The doctors have said they can’t promise they will get her fit to fly but they will do their best.”

Mr Downie said it was unlikely his daughter would be allowed to travel on a commercial flight and a special plane with medical equipment may be needed to get his daughter home.

“It’s going to cost a fortune. I don’t even know how much it’s going to cost, but I know these things aren’t cheap. That’s our biggest worry now, how we can get her home and if we can get her home,” he added.

“The best outcome we could think of is getting her home to her family.”

Mr Downie travelled to Mexico with his pregnant wife Lauren and the couple's other young daughter and Olivia earlier this month.

“It’s just turned into a living nightmare. I’m trying to be strong for my wife. I’m trying to keep her calm. Obviously she’s in a very delicate state. I’m trying to keep it together the best I can,” Mr Downie said.

“It’s probably the only thing I can hope for – that more donations come in so we can get her home.

“We haven’t appealed to anyone, the government or anyone. I think my wife was going to be calling the embassy today to see if they could help in any way.

“We’re just devastated. We came with so much hope, this was kind of the last throw of the dice for us but we came with hope because we know a family this treatment has worked for and then this happened, which was nothing to do with the treatment I don’t believe, it was just one of these things I think.

“[To get her home] it would mean the whole world, it would mean everything.”

An online donations page, originally set up to help fund the youngsters treatment, has attracted more than £20,000 in the last 24 hours.

To help OIivia go to her JustGiving page.

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