Elia Ikonomidis

Elia just turned seven last month. She is kind, loving, and incredibly funny. She loves to belly laugh - she has a big smile picketed with baby teeth and partially emerged adult teeth, missing tooth gaps in between. She loves art – her hands are usually speckled with paint and marker. She loves gaming with her older brother – as they talk about Minecraft and other games it sounds like a secret language they share. You would never know by looking at Elia – other than the scar on her chest – that she battled cancer for over two years.

But we know. We remember her being diagnosed at two years old. We remember the surgeries, the lumbar punctures, the bone marrow biopsies, the countless rounds of oral, IV, and intrathecal chemo and other drugs that pumped through her tiny body. We remember when she rang the bell during the pandemic, finally finishing treatment. We remember realizing that even though she was off active treatment that our family would never be without cancer.
Elia turned seven last month. She has only now spent more time in remission than she spent in treatment.

But cancer has forever changed our family. Cancer takes so much – Elia’s health, her hair, her childhood. But it also robbed her brother. It stole from her entire family – joy, stability, peace. It is isolating, long-reaching, and all encompassing. Elia continues to battle side effects from the very treatment that saved her life. And statistics show that the life she is blessed to have in front of her will be peppered with learning disabilities, chronic diseases, and a higher chance of developing secondary cancers. It continues to drain our energy, our bank account, our hearts.

But it has not taken our gratitude, our hope, our love. All we can do is try to create so much joy that the loss is overshadowed.

Thank you for helping us do just that. Thank you for wanting to bless our babies this Christmas so that they can experience the holiday magic that only children can truly appreciate. And that they so sorely need. You have no idea how much it means to us.

Elia is seven years old and loves art projects, Legos, and gaming with her older brother. Even when they are not in front of screens, they run around the house pretending to be characters and creating their own Minecraft or Mario-inspired silly games. Elia wants to be an artist when she grows up and is learning how to put together Lego sets from Minos.

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