Brisbane girl, 10, suffering from rare cancer – years after supporting her big sister through similar ordeal

As a toddler, Brisbane girl Taleisha Chisholme lay next to her big sister Rhianna as she battled a rare cancer.

Eight years later, while Rhianna has recovered, Taleisha is undergoing her own battle with another rare cancer.

“How do two kids get really, really rare conditions in one family? I don’t understand,” their mother Amanda Chisholme told 7NEWS.com.au.

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Rhianna was found to have anaplastic large cell lymphoma when she developed a painful lump on her arm as a 10-year-old in 2015.

Chisholme took her to a hospital but the lump was dismissed as cat-scratch disease.

“Something was telling me it wasn’t right … I said we’re not leaving until you do a biopsy,” she said.

“A week later I got a phone call, saying, ‘We don’t normally open the clinic on a Thursday but we will for Rhianna’.

“I knew then we weren’t going to get good news.”

Taleisha, as a toddler, supported her sister Rhianna through cancer. Credit: Supplied

Rhianna underwent chemotherapy during which time she lost her hair and suffered mentally from the ordeal.

However, the now healthy 18-year-old is embarking on a career as a flight attendant.

Taleisha’s cancer was discovered last year when she had complained about pain in her mouth.

A bulge was found on her bottom jaw.

While it was initially thought she may have had teeth growing incorrectly, or extra teeth, or even an abscess, a CT scan showed a mass.

She underwent surgery to remove the mass, which was discovered to be a tumour called central giant-cell granuloma.

It is a rare cancer — so rare that Chisholme has described the lack of information about it as “very scary”.

Taleisha was diagnosed with the rare cancer central giant-cell granuloma. Credit: Supplied
A scan found a lump on Taleisha’s lower jaw. Credit: 7NEWS

She has been unable to connect with “other families who have gone through this” to give her “some hope” Taleisha can survive it.

“With my other daughter’s cancer, the doctor said we got it early so the prognosis was really good,” Chisholme said.

“This, every time I Google it, it doesn’t really come up with anything.

“It’s benign but I don’t know if it’s going to kill her in the end.”

Six months after the initial surgery last year, a scan found Taleisha was clear of a regrowth.

But this month, another scan showed the mass had grown back to about 1cm in diameter.

Taleisha is set to undergo surgery to remove the mass for the second time in December. Credit: 7NEWS

Taleisha is set for further surgery to remove lump on December 4.

“Is it going to get taken out and never come back again, or every year are we going to get a tumour taken out?” Chisholme said.

She believes Taleisha is becoming stressed about the surgery but she “smiles a lot and everyone calls her a trouper”.

A GoFundMe has been set up to support the family.

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