Ella's Tea Party: 5-year-old who beat cancer helps others do the same

PHOENIX - A Valley girl who has beaten cancer is now helping other children do the same.

Ella Vidrine, 5, has battled childhood cancer most of her life.

Her mother Celine said she was told there was a mass on her daughter's liver.

"I just fell back into my chair," Celine said, as she looks back at the moment she found out Ella was ill.

Ella’s father Lyndon said the prognosis was not good.

"In addition to the baseball-size tumor, she had 50 lesions... and it was just a patchwork of white when you looked at the scans," he said.

Ella's diagnosis came when she was just 18 months old. It was stage 4 liver cancer, hepatoblastoma.

"There are no words to hear that... To hear those words was scary," Celine said. "At first we were given no hope."

The first doctor the family saw told them they did not have to treat the cancer.

"One of the options was to take her home and make her comfortable. That seemed absurd to me. Why would you give up on your kid?" Lyndon said.

"There was only one decision for us to make and it was to treat," he said.

And so Ella's 3.5 year battle to survive began. The Vidrine Family searched high and low across the country for hope but ended up finding it right here at home at the Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Ella's advanced stage cancer allowed her to participate in a pediatric research study conducted by PCH doctors in POETIC, an acronym for Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigations Consortium.

The Vidrines believe they have gotten their miracle. Ella, now 5 years old, is 7 months cancer free.

Ella's days now are filled with things that are important to her, like teaching baby sister Maya how to hula hoop.

The family finally got to go on Ella’s long awaited Disney cruise that Make-A-Wish granted two years ago. Constant chemotherapy made it impossible to take the trip until now.

The Vidrines now believe they need to help other families find their miracle.

And it's in that spirit that the Vidrines founded Ella's Tea Party, a non-profit that has raised $52,000 so far for childhood cancer research.

That money going directly back to the place credited with Ella's cure, the Phoenix Children's Hospital.

And specifically, that money benefits POETIC, the group that pediatric oncologist Dr. Jessica Boklan helps research new cures.

"Largely we rely on philanthropy to be able to fund our research," she said. "Before we had this program, patients would have to go out of town or across the country."

Now through March 8, you can go to any Denny's restaurant in Arizona and purchase a paper tea cup for $1.

All of the proceeds go to Ella's Tea Party for childhood cancer research.

Visit Ella's Tea Party website at www.ellasteaparty.com.