Telling a story with art

When a child is diagnosed with cancer, they can undergo hundreds of treatments and procedures. For each one a child endures, they receive a Bead of Courage.

Ella Bartley has less than 100 beads. 'We're really lucky,” says mum Kim. 'We had a well behaved tumour aye.” She leans over and kisses 7-year-old Ella on the forehead.


Ella Bartley, 7, with her artwork. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

'It's a good sort. She didn't have to have chemo and radiation therapy.”

That ‘well-behaved' tumour was once the size of a tennis ball. It was found inside Ella's head at age two.

'Every year I have to have an appointment,” says Ella. 'They put me to sleep and they look in my head to see if it's grown.”

And has it? Mum shakes her head. 'We say no.” She gives her daughter another cuddle. They're keeping on top of it.

One of Ella's beads represent the blood transfusion she received after some of the brain tumour was removed. 'It was the size of a tennis ball,” says Kim. 'Five centimetres by six centimetres.”

It is Ella's first visit to New Zealand Blood Service Tauranga Donor Centre. Kim tells Ella. 'This is where all the cool people come to donate blood”.

'You might have got a blood transfusion from a princess,” says The Weekend Sun photographer Tracy Hardy. Ella's face lights up.

What does this 7-year-old think of blood donors? 'They're really generous,” says Ella.

She reaches for a chocolate biscuit on the waiting room table before telling us blood donors should be allowed 1000 biscuits for giving blood.

Ella and her mum are visiting Tauranga Donor Centre to show us some of her artwork in the Exhibition of Child Cancer Foundation Art on display during November and December.

CCF children have created art pieces to exhibit and sell for a $100 or more donation to the foundation.

Ella has drawn a picture of a chicken which is hanging at the donor centre. A photograph she took of a cherry blossom at the end of her driveway is also on display.

The art exhibition is the Bartley's chance to give back to the foundation which supported them through Ella's treatments, says Kim.

'We've been really lucky, so it gives us an opportunity to help out. We're not the norm in terms of what a lot of the families go through. Especially if they're in this area, it means months and years up in Auckland”.

People can purchase a child's artwork on display at the Tauranga Donor Centre on Cameron Rd, donate blood, or both, this November and December.

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