For much of the past year, Mackenzie Butterworth and mum Tanya have been holed up in a hospital room or at Ronald McDonald House in Melbourne as Mackenzie has been treated for leukemia.
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As if that was not tough enough, COVID-19 restrictions meant they were isolated from the rest of the family for months at a time, and Ms Butterworth found out that cruel scammers had taken Mackenzie's photos off the internet to fraudulently raise money.
But over the past couple of months, with the family reunited at home in Ballarat, life has settled back in to a new routine and Mackenzie has become a normal toddler again.
However her battle is far from over with another 15 months of chemotherapy still ahead.
"Mackenzie is thriving being at home," Ms Butterworth said. "She's gone from this very angry, sad girl in hospital who screams every time a doctor or nurse comes to look at her, to now being happy, her hair is growing back, she's toilet trained, speaks well, is playful and loving."
Mackenzie was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in August last year after her parents noticed several unexplained bruises on her body.
"We got down to Melbourne that August morning and we didn't get to come home to stay for more than a weekend until the start of June," Ms Butterworth said.
When there were planned trips back to Ballarat, Mackenzie often developed a fever that would see her admitted to Ballarat Hospital or back to the Royal Children's Hospital because her body does not properly metabolise the oral chemotherapy that is an important part of the treatment.
"We were meant to be nine days home and four days in hospital each time ... but we spent most of that phase in hospital," Ms Butterworth said.
Until just before Easter her dad Brenton and siblings Preston, Izayiah, and Adalyn, had been able to visit and stay at Ronald McDonald House, near the Royal Children's Hospital, that ended abruptly when the COVID-19 pandemic began to raise concerns.
"I didn't know that once Brenton and the kids left to come home for a couple of nights, that they couldn't come back. I didn't know that until after I sent them home to get rest," she said.
The family of six had been sharing two small adjoining rooms and trying to keep everyone quiet and occupied was starting to take its toll, so dad and their three eldest children headed back home to Wendouree.
That also coincided with the hardest part of Mackenzie's treatment during which she had almost daily platelet infusions and about six blood transfusions to help her fight off the disease.
"She was just miserable in the end. It was just her and I alone and we couldn't see the other kids or Brenton."
During their hospital stay Ms Butterworth made the shocking discovery that several Facebook, Instagram and GoFundMe pages were using pictures of Mackenzie's fight against cancer to fraudulently raise money.
"I discovered people had copied her picture and were using it for scams in other countries," Ms Butterworth said. "I had a few weird account names follow her, then I saw her picture as their profile picture and went in to it and there were about five or six accounts linked to it."
She alerted the social media companies who shut down the pages.
"I don't want people using what she is going through to benefit them. It's disgusting," Ms Butterworth said.
Ms Butterworth kept their eventual homecoming a surprise for the rest of the family, telling only her mother and mother-in-law they were being discharged and turning up at home.
IN OTHER NEWS
Mackenzie was able to celebrate her third birthday at home at the start of July, and Father's Day this week which they missed last year as it was just days after their lives were turned upside down by the cancer diagnosis.
On Father's Day 2019, Mr Butterworth drove back to Ballarat with his three older children, leaving mother and daughter at RCH.
"It's a little bit scary being home and feeling like I now have to do all the care ... but I can email our nurse coordinator, call up day oncology for advice and I know I have the support there ... they really genuinely care," she said.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
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