Avrill first no­ticed bruis­es on her son Matthias’s arms and legs when he was three years old. They ap­peared with­out ex­pla­na­tion. There were no falls, no bumps and no rough play to ac­count for them. Then came the fever, per­sis­tent and un­re­lent­ing, and pain so se­vere that some days the tod­dler could not stand.

For an en­tire year, Avrill and her hus­band, Joseph, took their once-ac­tive lit­tle boy from doc­tor to doc­tor, search­ing for an­swers. Af­ter a three-month stay at the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal and a bat­tery of tests, they fi­nal­ly re­ceived a di­ag­no­sis: can­cer.

Matthias had B-cell acute lym­phoblas­tic leukaemia, or B-ALL, an ag­gres­sive can­cer of the white blood cells that, if left un­treat­ed, can be fa­tal.

For Avrill and Joseph, the news was dev­as­tat­ing. Their healthy, en­er­getic tod­dler was now fac­ing a life-threat­en­ing ill­ness. But the di­ag­no­sis was on­ly the be­gin­ning of their or­deal.

When dis­cus­sions turned to treat­ment, Avrill felt hope­less. The cost of PET scans, which can be as much as $19,000 de­pend­ing on the age of the child, seemed com­plete­ly out of reach for their fam­i­ly.

PET scans are used in can­cer treat­ment to de­ter­mine whether a treat­ment plan is ef­fec­tive, and they are re­quired at in­ter­vals dur­ing treat­ment.

Then a con­ver­sa­tion with Dr Kevon Din­di­al, the pae­di­atric on­col­o­gist over­see­ing Matthias’s care, changed every­thing. He told them about the RBC Caribbean Chil­dren’s Can­cer Fund, man­aged by the Can­cer So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The fund pro­vides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to chil­dren un­der 16 years of age to help off­set the costs of treat­ment. For Avrill and Joseph, it was the first ray of hope in a year of dark­ness.

Matthias’s sto­ry is not unique. Across Trinidad and To­ba­go, fam­i­lies face the same dif­fi­cult com­bi­na­tion of a can­cer di­ag­no­sis and the high cost of care.

Eliana’s fam­i­ly was one of them.

Eliana was just 12 years old when her par­ents, Eliz­a­beth and James, re­ceived the news. She had been a healthy child, ac­tive, in­tel­li­gent and full of life.

Then came the di­ag­no­sis: Hodgkin lym­phoma, a can­cer of the lym­phat­ic sys­tem.

Sud­den­ly, Eliz­a­beth and James were thrust in­to a world of hos­pi­tal cor­ri­dors, treat­ment plans and mount­ing med­ical bills, while al­so grap­pling with the ter­ri­fy­ing un­cer­tain­ty of whether their daugh­ter would sur­vive.

“Hav­ing a child di­ag­nosed with can­cer af­ter hav­ing been healthy pri­or takes such an emo­tion­al toll. I don’t think peo­ple un­der­stand how this can af­fect one’s psy­che,” said Eliz­a­beth.

When Eliana be­gan treat­ment, her med­ical team rec­om­mend­ed PET scans at var­i­ous in­ter­vals to mon­i­tor her progress. The cost of each scan was a bur­den that would have been in­sur­mount­able for many fam­i­lies.

But, as with Matthias, Dr Din­di­al ini­ti­at­ed the process to ac­cess the RBC Caribbean Chil­dren’s Can­cer Fund on their be­half.

“When we heard the cost, we were stumped,” Eliz­a­beth re­called. “But then we heard about the fund, and it was a huge re­lief and a bless­ing to know that such a fa­cil­i­ty was avail­able.”

For Dr Din­di­al, the fund is not just a fi­nan­cial re­source but an im­por­tant part of can­cer care. As the pae­di­atric on­col­o­gist who over­sees the care of 30 to 40 chil­dren an­nu­al­ly, he has seen first­hand the dif­fer­ence it makes in treat­ment out­comes.

“Treat­ment for can­cer pa­tients is cost­ly,” he said. “Ad­di­tion­al­ly, di­ag­nos­tic test­ing such as a Flow Cy­tome­ter is not avail­able lo­cal­ly, and pa­tients re­quir­ing this treat­ment must send their scans abroad.”

While PET scans are avail­able with­in the pri­vate health sec­tor, the fact that three to four scans may be re­quired per pa­tient can bring health care costs to as much as $80,000 for that op­tion alone.

For Dr Din­di­al, the fund helps en­sure chil­dren with can­cer have ac­cess to the treat­ment they need.

The race be­hind the fund

The fund that helped both fam­i­lies is sup­port­ed by the an­nu­al RBC Race for the Kids.

Since its in­cep­tion in New York in 2009, the race has ex­pand­ed to 29 coun­tries, bring­ing to­geth­er more than 525,000 par­tic­i­pants and rais­ing more than CAD$118 mil­lion to sup­port youth-fo­cused char­i­ties.

In T&T, the race is now in its 11th year and has raised more than $7 mil­lion to as­sist chil­dren such as Matthias and Eliana.

Each year, all 5,500 spots in the race are filled. For Marc Jar­dine, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of RBC Roy­al Bank Trinidad and To­ba­go, hear­ing from fam­i­lies who have ben­e­fit­ed from the fund brings the pur­pose of the event in­to fo­cus.

“We have had the priv­i­lege of hear­ing di­rect­ly from the chil­dren and fam­i­lies we have sup­port­ed. When a par­ent tells you that RBC’s sup­port helped cov­er their child’s treat­ment, it puts every­thing in­to per­spec­tive. RFTK is not just a race. For fam­i­lies such as Matthias and Eliana, it is a life­line. Their sto­ries are hum­bling re­minders of why we do this and con­fir­ma­tion that we are do­ing the right thing,” he said.

The sup­port al­so ex­tends be­yond race day. With­in RBC Trinidad and To­ba­go, staff have raised $60,000 in do­na­tions for the 2026 race through in­ter­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Where are they now?

To­day, while mon­i­tor­ing is on­go­ing, both Matthias and Eliana have been de­clared can­cer-free.

Eliana, now 17, as­pires to be­come an on­col­o­gist, a dream born from the ex­pe­ri­ence that al­most took her life.

For Matthias and his fam­i­ly, the RBC Race for the Kids has be­come a sta­ple event, with Avrill en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to at­tend and sup­port it every year.

The RBC Race for the Kids, in part­ner­ship with the Can­cer So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, will con­tin­ue to fund treat­ment, care and re­search for chil­dren bat­tling can­cer.

How you can help

Peo­ple wish­ing to sup­port the RBC Caribbean Chil­dren’s Can­cer Fund can do­nate to RBC Ac­count 100089110471357 or vis­it the do­na­tion page to make an on­line con­tri­bu­tion.