After a four-year battle, 20 radiotherapy treatments and one dream encounter with royalty, Lili's health is back. Photo / Michael Craig
After a four-year battle, 20 radiotherapy treatments and one dream encounter with royalty, Lili's health is back. Photo / Michael Craig
Nine-year-old Lili Reynolds has beaten brain cancer — a year since the brave little Aucklander was granted her wish to meet a real-life princess.
Diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was just 5, Lili was the cheerful little girl who presented the Duchess of Cambridge with flowers and a welcoming smile at Viaduct Harbour, inset, as part of Kate and Prince William's visit to Auckland in April last year.
And after a four-year battle with cancer, 20 radiotherapy treatments and one dream encounter with royalty, Lili's health is back.
"She is doing really well. She's been given the all clear. It's brilliant news, we're really, really happy," Shane Reynolds, Lili's father, told the Herald on Sunday.
"She still gets headaches but other than that Lily's great. She's even top of her class at school and the whole family is so grateful for everyone's support along the way."
Lili's meeting with Kate and William was the result of a wish to meet a "royal and beautiful" princess, which the Make-A-Wish Foundation helped make come true.
Crouching to say hello, Kate leaned in and said to Lili, "I hope everything goes okay with your treatment". It's a chat the youngster will always hold on to.
Lili later told reporters: "I said, 'Pleased to meet you, Your Royal Highness'.
"She said I was very courageous with all these beads on [signifying all the treatment she had received]."
Shane Reynolds said it was a once-in-a-lifetime encounter which had helped lift the spirits of his own princess.
"Lili still talks about it every now and again and has kept all her news clippings and TV interviews.
"At the time of meeting Kate and William, Lili was still going through her radiation therapy. About three months after that she had an MRI which came back clear, two months later another MRI came back clear and about four weeks ago she had a third MRI which came back clear as well."
Lili with parents Shane and Tu-Ahn Reynolds. Photo / Michael Craig
The Duchess of Cambridge's brother-in-law, Prince Harry, is set to visit New Zealand next month. It will be his first trip here and will follow a four-week secondment with the Australian Defence Force.
The Duchess is expecting her second child next month and speculation she is expecting a girl has been fuelled by a delivery of pots of pink paint to the royal household.
A top Oxford interior design company has recently supplied three feminine paint samples to Anmer Hall, where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge live with their toddler son Prince George, according to the Daily Mail.
The palette includes a "beautiful rich complex pink".
