The family of brave little girl with impeccable Galway roots are appealing for help to get their little girl to the US for a clinical trial that might make all the difference in her battle with life-threatening illness.

Zoe Mills was diagnosed with Stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma, an extremely aggressive childhood cancer – devasting her parents David and Emma, and her Galway grandparents Tony and Kathleen Mills.

Now, on the first anniversary of Zoe’s devastating diagnosis, David and Emma, together with family and friends, have launched a fundraising campaign called “Hope for Zoe” to try and raise as much money as possible to access a clinical trial in the USA.

Their nightmare began in August 2023, when Zoe suddenly became unwell and scans showed that a tumour attached to her kidney, and taking up 50% of her abdomen, had spread throughout her tiny body and fully into her bone marrow.

It was a massive shock to the young parents.

David had grown up in Swords but has strong Galway connections. His father Tony who sadly passed away last November was a native of Tuam and, after he retired from his work as a salesman in Arnott’s, he moved to live in Claregalway with his wife Kathleen.

Fellow Galwegian Kathleen (formerly Spellman) is a native of Clostoken, outside Loughrea, and both were well known as strong supporters of Gaelic Games in Galway. The family were regular visitors to Claregalway and loved the visits to Galway.

However as Tony’s health began to decline, the decision was made by Tony and Kathleen to move back to Swords to be close to their immediate family.

The dreadful news of Zoe’s illness had also a devastating effect on the grandparents and within a few months Tony had slipped away.

By then Zoe had already started an intense 18-month treatment plan, and she has bravely battled through chemotherapy and intricate abdominal surgery to remove as much of the main tumour as possible.

She has also undergone additional high dose chemo and a stem cell transplant requiring six weeks of isolation in a dedicated transplant unit; 14 sessions of radiotherapy – each one carried out under general anaesthetic – and countless blood transfusions, injections and medical procedures.

Zoe is currently undergoing the immunotherapy phase of her treatment – five cycles over six months, with the first two cycles requiring a morphine pump to manage her pain.

Immunotherapy will hopefully be the final stage of Zoe’s frontline treatment and it’s hoped that her post treatment PET scan will show “no evidence of disease”.

David and Emma are committed to doing all they can to give Zoe the best chance of a long and healthy life. They are aware that the outlook for neuroblastoma can be bleak, with a very high relapse rate, and limited treatment options if relapse occurs. This makes the longer-term survival statistics unthinkable.

Today, Zoe is doing her best to stand up and take a few steps, say a few words, and even ‘sing’ along to her favourite movie, Frozen!

She is getting used to her hearing aids, which were necessary after the hearing loss caused by chemo and communicating better every day. Her feeding tube is still required for her nutrition and daily medication.

The Mills and Spellman families are appealing to people of Galway to join and support baby Zoe by contributing to the fund so that this brave little girl can get the best shot at life if the clinic trial is successful.

Donations can be made directly through https://www.gofundme.com/f/ng2xb-hope-for-zoe.

Pictured: Zoe Mills…clinical trial appeal.