Harper Nicoll: Perth family desperate for stem cell match for 4-year-old battling aggressive Leukaemia

Four-year-old Harper Nicoll should be running around with her nine-year-old sister Akira and getting excited about Christmas. Instead, she is fighting for her life inside Perth Children’s Hospital — while her family prays for a stem cell donor match that could return Harper to her bubbly, energetic self. Harper, who is of Maori and Italian heritage, has a rare genetic makeup that has made finding a donor almost impossible — and her doctors are in a desperate search for an ideal stem cell donor match for a transplant by January. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia only a few months ago. The illness began with subtle signs — muscle aches, fatigue, unexplained bruising and fevers that wouldn’t go away. Her mum, Stefii Nicoll, said she knew something was seriously wrong. “It started around August… she was quite sick with like the flu or a virus every week,” Ms Nicoll said. “Then I started noticing bruising on her legs, which weren’t going away, and then leg pain started to come on quite strong… so then we took her into a GP and did blood work and her blood count came back low.” After further tests and a bone marrow aspiration — something Ms Nicoll had to push for — her worst fears were confirmed. “I had the gut feel… I kind of knew from the start it was leukaemia, but I didn’t want to be right,” she said. Harper was diagnosed on October 8. Within days she began chemotherapy and her family started trying to adjust to their new reality of near-constant hospital isolation. Since her diagnosis, Harper has spent only five days out of hospital — and the family already knows she will likely spend Christmas on the ward. Through it all, Harper keeps smiling. “She was very emotional… but she took it like a champ,” Ms Nicoll said. “She’s been very resilient. I don’t think she fully understands… but she understands that she needs to be here. She accepts it and does it.” The diagnosis has devastated the young family. Ms Nicoll and her husband Jordan have both had to stop working so they can care for Harper. The pair said the financial and emotional strain is immense. “It’s been heart-breaking, I think my body has gone into shock and trying to absorb all the information at the same time, it’s a lot,” Ms Nicoll said. Life for the Nicolls now revolves around hospital rooms, medical updates and uncertainty — made harder by the distressing reality that a suitable donor has so far been impossible to find. “At first they tested all of us… and we weren’t a match. Ideally they want a 10 out of 10 match,” Ms Nicoll said. “At this stage, we haven’t found anyone on the donor list. We need her to go through the stem cell transplant in January. They don’t want to wait any longer.” Ms Nicoll said the family never expected their mixed heritage would make finding a match so difficult. “We’ve become so much more aware of the fact that there’s a lot of mixed races that aren’t accounted for for donors… I personally didn’t think it was going to be that hard to find a donor,” she said. “I didn’t think that being Maori and Italian was going to be difficult.” If no match is found soon, doctors will resort to a haplo transplant — a partial match, using a parent. It is riskier and far from ideal. “The fact that we do have other options is great. But… it would have been even better if we could have found her a 10 out of 10 match,” Ms Nicoll said. The family admitted they cannot even bring themselves to ask doctors what happens if Harper doesn’t respond well to the haplo transplant. “At this stage we’re just taking one thing at a time,” Ms Nicoll said. “For us to cope with this, it’s hard for us to hear things like that.” Despite everything, Harper still finds moments of joy. “She loves music therapy in the hospital, she still loves to dance,” her mum said. If you are 18–35 and willing to become a donor, you can register through Stem Cell Donors Australia. For Harper, and countless other children waiting for a match, it could be the gift that saves a life.