Community rallying to support 2-year-old with brain cancer

A two-year-old girl diagnosed with brain cancer is touching the hearts of people living in Selkirk, Man.

Doctors diagnosed Brenna Schellenberg with Medulloblastoma on July 28th.

Medulloblastoma is a fast-spreading cancerous brain tumour and has already spread to other parts of Schellenberg's spine.

She has been in and out of the intensive care unit at the Children's Hospital in Winnipeg for the last three weeks and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.

Brenna still has her hair, but doctors have toldthe family it could start to fall out in the coming days.

"She's just the strongest toughest little girl that any of us have ever met," her mother,CandaceSchellenberg said.

"She's taken it like a champion."

Schellenberg said her daughter's diagnosis blindsided her family, who didn't know what was wrong with her for weeks.

"She's been the healthiest little girl other than one or two common colds that's all she's had," she said.

Schellenberg said friends and even strangers have stepped up to offer their help to the family and is crediting her community's love with keeping her going.

"We really couldn't get through this without them," she said. "We have an army of supporters behind us."

Heather Stark is a family friend and is helping to organize a community garage sale taking place Sept. 24 at the Selkirk Memorial Hall.

"Our hope is to add some comfortability to them," Stark said.

Schellenberg, who is self-employed, stopped working along with her husband Jason to be with Brenna.

Stark said the hope of the garage sale is to raise funds for the couple and their two other children.

She said volunteers have stepped up collecting donations for the garage sale and are also putting on a hog and grog a kid-friendly social taking place Oct.1.

"Every day you're seeing somebody new to jumping on board to help whichever way they can," Stark said.

For Schellenberg, the thought of financial support is overwhelming.

"There's a lot of back and forth between Winnipeg and Selkirk and of course parking isn't cheap, and meals in the hospital aren't cheap," she said.

Information about both the garage sale and the hog and grog are on Facebook.