Healthy start: Ava Barker was not going to let cancer get in the way of starting school. She will join her brothers Ethan and Seth, pictured with their mother Kirsty O'Brien, at "big school" this year. Picture: Chris Lane
YOU could say that Ava Barker, 5, of Woolooware, has timed things perfectly.
From the hospital ward to the classroom, she has defied the odds and will join her brothers at school this year. Ava was diagnosed with leukaemia at 18 months.
After year of treatment and a relapse, she received a bone marrow transplant from an overseas donor in April last year.
She is in remission and is preparing for her big first day at Woolooware Public School next week.
"Just making it this far is a miracle," her mother Kirsty O'Brien said.
"When none of my kids matched to be donors — which was only a 25 per cent they would, we didn't think she would be so lucky."
