PHOTO: Bildbyrån + Instagram
She is only 17 years old and has become acutely ill with leukemia.
Goalkeeper profile Lee Baxter’s daughter and athletics talent Xana Baxter is now fighting for her life.
– When it’s hard, you don’t give up. You get a certain mentality as elite active, she tells Sportbladet.
The goalkeeper profile Lee Baxterson of the coaching legend Stuart Baxter and former goalkeeper in AIK, Malmö FF and IFK Göteborg, currently works as a goalkeeper coach in “Blåvitt”. But since January, he has been missing in and around the Allsvenskan club.
Xana acutely ill
The reason is that his daughter Xana Baxter, who is 17 years old and a talent in athletics, became seriously ill with acute blood cancer, leukemia. Now the family opens up about the teenager’s life struggle.
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It was during the Christmas holidays that the young sprinter, who competes in the 100 meters and 200 meters, noticed that her body could not cope as much as usual during training. She had problems with a lot of headaches, bad hearing and pain in her ribs.
The 17-year-old’s struggle
Then it got worse and Xana was forced to emergency care with an ambulance ride after an incident and at the hospital in Gothenburg it was discovered that she had suffered from acute leukemia, reports Sportbladet. Since then, the father Lee has been on sick leave for several months to take care of his daughter and help during the treatment.
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The 17-year-old has gone through chemotherapy as well as an extensive operation where 65 percent of the colon was removed and replaced with an ostomy bag.
– I’m trying to learn to walk again. The doctors don’t know if I suffered nerve damage after any of the three stomach operations they have done on me. Now I’m starting to get stronger and I can go quite far with the walking table, Xana says to the evening newspaper.
Papa Lee’s words
Now she is on her third intensive chemotherapy treatment and is currently being cared for at the university hospital in Lund. So far, the body has responded well to the chemotherapy.
– We just got an answer after a bone marrow biopsy and the leukemia was below 0.01 percent. It is so low that it is barely measurable. It is very positive, says Lee Baxter in the interview.
– Everyone who has been involved and is involved with Xana is extremely impressed and proud of her. She was operated on three times in ten days, but has been fighting the whole time. It is also on occasions like this that you are impressed by how the healthcare system works. How the different actors interact with each other gives me thoughts about my own leadership in football.
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The father urges everyone to join the Tobias registry of stem cell donors and the next step for Xana’s treatment is to find a matching donor for stem cell replacement. Several of her friends in athletics and at Malmö’s Sports High School have started a fundraiser via the Instagram account “Starka Xana” to help her by selling homemade bracelets, see the picture below.
– When it’s hard, you don’t give up. You get a certain mentality as elite active, says Xana herself about the struggle for life.
– When I’m healthy, I want to go out and travel and see the world and start training again. I miss athletics.
Fight on, Xana! ❤️
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