What started with a handwritten note to Princess Kate, penned from her hospital bed, culminated on July 7, with the meeting of a lifetime for six-year-old wish child Diamond.
Diagnosed earlier this year with stage IV undifferentiated sarcoma, Diamond was referred to Children's Wish to help grant her most heartfelt wish of meeting a real princess: Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge. From her bed at the Alberta Children's Hospital, Diamond watched Kate marry her prince charming on television.
The dream became reality thanks to an invitation from the office of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta. Diamond, accompanied by her father Lyall and step mother Danielle, rushed across the tarmac towards the Duchess, giving her legs a quick hug before retreating to her parent’s arms. Smiling, Kate crouched next to Diamond and spoke to her for several minutes. Diamond then presented Kate with flowers and a homemade gift.
In a letter to the Foundation describing Diamond's wish, Lyall wrote: "We realize Diamond's wish is enormous. We also realize she may not have the chance to go Disneyland where she wants to lunch with princesses. Should the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge just happen to swing by for a little visit, it would go a long way for helping her spirits as she is in awe of Princess Kate's fairytale like story."
Last December, Lyall and Danielle noticed that Diamond was lethargic and that her abdomen was oddly distended. After some tests, their worst fears were confirmed: she had a large cancerous tumour in her abdomen and several small masses in her lungs. Before treatment could commence, Diamond started to bleed internally and her life was in imminent danger. Diamond had two back-to-back life-saving emergency angioplasties and thrombosis injections to stop the tumour from bleeding. Numerous obstacles followed, which kept her in ICU for nearly a month.
Shortly after Diamond was born, her mother Memory was diagnosed with poor prognosis pregnancy cancer, known as GTN. Unfortunately, her mother succumbed to the violent disease in early 2007, when Diamond was only 18 months old.
Despite already having overcome many challenges to date, several treatments, surgeries and uncertainties still lie ahead for Diamond and family. When told that Diamond's wish would come true, Lyall and Danielle could hardly put into words what this experience means to their daughter except to say that Children's Wish proved that "the impossible is possible."
