Brave Eva nose the value of life's simple pleasures

Eva Mitchell and Jared Turner during filming. Photo / Herald on Sunday

It's been two long years within the four walls of Starship Hospital for pint-sized battler Eva Mitchell.

The hospital may be a gilded cage with caring doctors and nurses, but it's been a cage nonetheless - so stepping outside last weekend was an enormous moment.

Eva is only 3 years old, but she has been fighting for her life ever since she was born with half a diaphragm, affecting her breathing.

Ward 25 has been her home. It is all she knows.

But on Sunday, she had a huge smile on her face as she ventured out on her first day trip in two years, said her mother Tiffany Mitchell.

"She kept saying 'I'm going to get my red nose and run and run and run'," Mitchell said.

But unlike other children her age, Eva could not run on the grass or play in the sandpit outside. Eva spent her first three months of life in a coma and has had several surgeries, 11 bouts of pneumonia, several strokes and she is on oxygen every day.

An average day involves "drugs, meds and pain".

Mitchell and older daughter Mela, 5, have lived at Ronald McDonald House for the past three years and husband Joel stays on the weekends, commuting to Warkworth for work.

A doctor accompanied Eva as she took part in the filming of a Cure Kids Red Nose Day advert.

She got to meet actor Jared Turner, from Go Girls and The Almighty Johnsons - a highlight of the little girl's day out.

"It's something that means a lot to us because things like this are huge memories for Eva," Mitchell said.

Celebrities including Next Top Model judge Colin Mathura-Jeffree and singer Dane Rumble also took part.

Her family hopes to bring a doctor from the US to New Zealand before the end of the year to provide specialist advice about Eva's rare condition.

Eva's outgoing, happy personality meant they couldn't feel sad, Mitchell said. "We don't really talk about long term because no one knows and we don't know how long we've got her."

Cure Kids funds research into life-threatening childhood illnesses such as Eva's, and has invested more than $26 million in medical research in the past 35 years.

The Cure Kids Red Nose Day advert featuring Eva will air from tomorrow.