After enduring several rounds of chemotherapy since September at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, efforts to beat seven-month-old Bennett Cleugh’s leukemia continue.
Ashley Wager-Cleugh, Bennett’s mother, said the toddler is currently going through a third round of chemotherapy to keep his cancer under control while his family waits for him to begin an immunotherapy called CAR T-cell therapy as a part of a trial procedure.
CAR T-cell therapy is a type of cancer immunotherapy treatment that uses immune cells, called T cells, that are genetically altered in a lab to enable them to locate and destroy cancer cells more effectively.
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“Bennett is having a tough time getting into remission,” said Wager-Cleugh.
“We are hoping the CAR T-cell therapy will put him into remission and he will then head right into a bone marrow transplant. We originally thought we would be home by March, but now we are looking at June, and that is if everything goes as planned.”
In September, Bennett was not eating and had been throwing up on and off for a few days so the family, which also includes Bennett’s father Gilbert and sister Madeline, took him to Cowichan District Hospital to get checked out.
The family thought it was just a virus, but after tests, it was determined that Bennett had acute lymphocytic leukemia, which is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made.
The aggressive disease progresses rapidly and creates immature blood cells, rather than mature ones.
Bennett has been at the BC Children’s Hospital undergoing treatment ever since, and his parents have been staying close by at the hospital’s Ronald MacDonald House with their lives on hold since the fall.
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Wager-Cleugh said it’s expected that Bennett will be infused with T cells by the middle of January, and if he successfully goes into remission, the hope is that a bone marrow transplant can be done by mid-February.
“Our hearts are very heavy during this time with Bennett’s cancer being so hard to fight,” she said.
“We are just so grateful for today’s medicine because in the past, Bennett’s prognosis would not look very positive with his cancer being so hard to fight. We have so much faith in the medical team here at BC Children’s Hospital and know that they are doing whatever they can to get rid of Bennett’s cancer and to not have it come back.”
After Bennett’s original diagnosis, a GoFundMe page was set up to help the family cover expenses and the financial losses of losing work while he is in hospital that raised almost $30,000.
But with at least another half year expected before they can take Bennett home, a bottle drive, called “Bottles for Bennett”, will be held on Feb. 3 at the bottle depot located at 6476 Norcross Rd. to help raise more funds.
“We’d like to thank everyone in the community for helping us get through this difficult time,” Wager-Cleugh said,
“We’ve been amazed at just how incredible people can be.”