Tayler Gets Better

April 27, 2007 permalink

The maltreatment of Tayler Diamond by doctors at McMaster has been remedied by transfer of the girl to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. The CAS is no longer menacing the family. Earlier stories January 6, January 2 and October 11, 2006.

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Tayler 'happy' her chemo scaled back

By Susan Gamble, expositor staff - Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 01:00

The young girl who was forced by the Children’s Aid Society to take chemotherapy treatment now has a new set of doctors and treatment regimen in Toronto.

Tayler Diamond, 9, is still undergoing chemotherapy, but at lighter doses which make her mother more comfortable.

The girl was at the centre of a controversy last year when her mother, Lisa Diamond, ended Tayler’s chemo treatments at McMaster hospital, opting to pursue alternative treatments while Tayler’s acute lymphoblastic leukemia was in remission.

The girl had about a year of chemo, which left her burned and blistered and — at one point — she went into septic shock when the medical procedures almost killed her.

When Tayler was removed from the treatments, doctors at McMaster insisted that another year of treatments was needed in order to ensure the leukemia didn’t return. The doctors threatened to call the Children’s Aid Society and then did so.

Tayler was ordered back into treatment despite studies turned up by her mother showing many pediatric cancer patients die of secondary illnesses, often caused by the chemotherapy.

The local CAS used a judge-issued protection order under the Child and Family Service Act that allows the organization to step in if it feels a child needs medical treatment.

While the girl tolerated the next few months of chemo relatively well, Diamond said doctors continued to yell at her for her views, often in front of her daughter.

“I finally demanded a transfer to Toronto,” Diamond said this week.

At an assessment at Sick Kids Hospital, doctors opted for a break from the chemo because Tayler’s condition was too fragile. She had been susceptible to infections for several months and her mother said Tayler’s mouth was full of large canker sores that made it difficult for her to eat.

“Now she’s slowly gaining weight back,” Diamond said. “Toronto also knocked the level of her chemo down by two notches.”

She is delighted with the different attitude she’s found at Sick Kids although she still insists that if it were up to her alone, she’d opt out of the chemo.

The best news Diamond has had in a while is the closure of Tayler’s file by the Children’s Aid Society. The file was closed within about a month of Tayler’s transfer to Sick Kids.

“I’m more comfortable now because Sick Kids seems so committed to double and triple checking everything. They involve me in the process and show us exactly what she’s being given.”

Today, Tayler is less anxious about the chemo protocol and the setting.

She and her mother have to rise at 4 a.m. each week on chemo morning and are on the road at 5:30 a.m. but Diamond said the extra effort is worthwhile.

“She’s happy. She thinks Sick Kids is like a mall where you can shop. You do what’s in her best interests.”

Diamond said Tayler continues to look forward to her alternative treatments of reflexology and reiki (a Japanese holistic touch technique) and continues to take nutritional supplements.

Source: Brantford Expositor
thanks to a VOCA reader for an alert