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Harry Drake: Austhorpe Primary School raise funds for poorly youngster
Kind-hearted staff and pupils at Austhorpe Primary are raising funds to help pay for bone marrow treatment for the grandson of a teaching assistant who is seriously ill with leukaemia.
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Eleven-month-old Harry Drake lives with his parents near San Francisco and although the family have insurance the complicated health care system there means they still face huge costs themselves.
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Austhorpe Primary teaching assiatant, Janet Phillipson, said: "Already this has reached half a million dollars and friends in America have raised 12,000 dollars to help. My daughter Katie has had to give up her job to be with Harry and she and her husband Julian have had to take their other son Jack, three, out of day care because it is too expensive.
"Harry was diagnosed in June, but in March they had moved house to San Anselmo about 15 miles north of San Francisco and so have the travelling expenses as well. Katie and Julian spend alternate nights sleeping at the hospital."
A former pupil at Garforth Community College, Katie is an art director and moved out to California in 2000 with her husband after being headhunted by a retail clothing giant.
Mrs Phillipson, who lives in Garforth, explained that Harry had acute myeloid leukaemia of the central nervous system in his spine which was very hard to cure.
He has already received three doses of chemotherapy and has now started bone marrow procedure in preparation for a transplant.
"Harry will then have to spend six to eight weeks living in a virtual bubble before coming home," she said.
"He will then have to be careful for the next six to nine months and avoid crowded places.
"If he gets to two he will be thought to have been cured, but doctors think the leukaemia will return. The treatment will give him a 20 per cent chance of survival.
"It's been an absolute nightmare. I keep ringing and emailing to try to keep them buoyed up."
Mrs Phillipson has worked at Austhorpe Primary for 14 years and last Friday the children turned up in pyjamas for a fundraising day which also included raffles, a bring-and-buy sale and tombola. On Harry's first birthday on November 27 the school is also planning to release balloons.
Mrs Phillipson spent 10 weeks in California in the summer and hopes to return in the New Year.
"I am absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity, kindness and concern," said Mrs Phillipson.
"It is helping me to cope."
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Weather for Leeds
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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