The battle to save Canberra girl Annabelle Potts

Five months ago, Annabelle's mum noticed something strange. What started as night terrors and behavioural changes turned out to be terminal cancer.

It's hard to put a price on hope. For a Canberra family, the Potts family, that price sits around $25,000. That's what every treatment costs, to hopefully save their little girl from a terminal brain tumour.

Kathie and Adam Potts say they screamed and held each other when they were told their three-year-old daughter Annabelle had an aggressive brain tumour. "I think I screamed and said no," says Annabelle's mum Kathie.

It was five months ago that Kathie noticed something odd in Annabelle.

"It started as sleep disturbances," says Kathie. Night terrors and behavioural changes progressed to limping, that's when they knew something was terribly wrong.

After extensive tests, the family were told it was Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), which is an aggressive and difficult to treat brain tumour at the base of the brain. They were told Annabelle's tumour is also inoperable.

"I knew it was bad, I just asked how long have we got," says Kathie. "He (the surgeon) said, with this type of tumour we talk about it in a matter of months."

The Potts family have been fighting ever since. Searching, hoping for a miracle cure.
With all Australian options exhausted, the Potts family are now looking to treatments and trials overseas.

Mexico offers a unique intra-arterial chemotherapy treatment combined with Immunotherapy.

"It's where they feed the chemotherapy drugs up through an artery in the groin, to help it get through the blood brain barrier," explains Kathie. "It costs around $25,000 Australian per treatment. They expect she'll need eight to 12 treatments."

There is no Australian Government support or private health care support for the family, who will relocate to Mexico to be by Annabelle's side.

The family leave on June 12, two days after Annabelle's fourth birthday and are asking for the community's help to fund the project.

"We need help to save our little girl," says Kathie.

"This treatment in Mexico has given us hope. Annabelle is five months past diagnosis, the doctors in Australia only give us nine months to live. We have to do something. We have to try everything."

The Canberra community have rallied and raised more than $170,000 for the family so far.