Twelve-year-old Annika Whyte (left), a survivor of yolk sac cancer, with her mother, Sophian Brown-Whyte (right), at the fifth Jamaica Cancer Society's Relay for Life at the Police Officers' Cllub on Saturday. In the background are Nicola Crosswell-Mair (left) and Janette Taylor, members of the Relay for Life survivors' committee. - Andrew Smith/Photography Editor

Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

When some 51,000of her peers were busy preparing for their Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) in March, Annika Whyte, a 12-year-old student at Lawrence Tavern Primary School, St. Andrew, was battling with yolk sac cancer - a rare type of ovarian cancer.

Yolk sac tumours generally occur in younger women. Health experts say 75 per cent of all ovarian cancers are found in women under the age of 30.

In December, Annika, then 11, started to feel severe pains in her abdomen, forcing her mother to take her to a private doctor.

The doctor asked her to do an ultrasound which showed that the young girl had a mass over her ovaries.

Annika was immediately referred to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).

Several tests were conducted and doctors surmised that she had an ovarian cyst, so an operation was scheduled to remove it.

The specimen was sent to the laboratory, and when the results came back, the family was told that it was not a cyst but, in fact, a rare type of cancer.

Devastated

Annika and her parents Glendon Whyte, a landscaper, and Sophian Brown-Whyte, a student, were devastated when they got the news.

"I was so worried about my daughter," said Mr. Brown. "I just had to be strong ... The church and everybody else prayed for us and that was how we were able to pull through," Mrs. Brown-Whyte told The Gleaner.

"I felt scared," a shy Annika told The Gleaner Saturday night at Relay for Life, an overnight event that increases awareness about cancer in the community and raises funds to fight the disease.

The event was held at the Police Officers' Club, St. Andrew.

Chemotherapy successful

Annika was told that she would have to undergo a series of chemotherapy exercises. Her parents could not afford the treatment, but several persons assisted Annika, who was admitted to the UHWI for treatment.

The course of chemotherapy was successful and today Annika is doing well. She has now returned to school, but has lost one of her ovaries.

The Ministry of Education and Youth will place her in a high school because she missed her examinations. Annika said she is looking forward to high school life in September.

She enjoys playing netball, writing songs and, like most children, watching Disney Channel.

Annika, who has a mathematics average of 98, wants to become a mathematician or professional netballer.

petrina.francis@gleanerjm.com