The 5-year-old Nomi van der Linden from Schaijk passed away on Monday. The young girl had been suffering from neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer, for some time. Nomi was a celebrity in Schaijk. Together with her family and the village, she did a lot to raise money for KiKa between all the hospital visits.
In September 2021, the nightmare began. Nomi looked pale, no longer slept, ate worse and worse and sometimes cried out in pain. After an ultrasound at the hospital, it turned out that there was a tumor in Nomi’s abdomen.
A very long and heavy treatment process followed. Initially, there were six rounds of chemotherapy. And then chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy followed for another year and a half. There would always be a 50 percent chance that the tumor would come back.
Mother Yvon said a year ago: “If it comes back, it cannot be treated properly. So we don’t want to think about that.”
“There is little chance that anything will work now”
But the neuroblastoma that was removed from Nomi last year came back. As a result, the chances of survival became increasingly smaller.
“There is no medicine that cures this. There is little chance that anything will still work,” said father Pieter in January. “In the end, the treatments did not work and were stopped. During the operation, doctors will try to remove the tissue. The doctors are doing everything they can.” But eventually Nomi passed away on Monday.
The girl has regularly been in the news for the past year and a half. For example, all of Schaijk baked cupcakes to raise money for the KiKa Foundation, for research into childhood cancer. Nomi participated fully in the sale in her parents’ driveway. Playing shop was totally her thing.
In January she was really allowed to work in a shop. The Make-A-Wish Foundation spoiled Nomi for a whole day. There was a private fair in the village hall, a princess who painted Nomi and her friends and she toured Schaijk in a bright pink limousine.
“We do the Giro de KiKa for all children.”
The news that Nomi has passed away hits Schaijk hard. “She is our fellow villager,” says Henk Willems against Dtv News about the girl’s death. Willems is part of Team Nomi Reseach=Life, which will participate in Giro di KiKa in Italy in June. The team of seven has already raised more than 22,000 euros for research into childhood cancer.
“We dedicate this trip to Nomi”, says Willems. Last autumn, the team asked permission from the parents to link their participation in the Giro di KiKa to Nomi. “This is how we give it a personal touch.”
Now that Nomi has passed away a month before the Giro di KiKa, the team is even more motivated to participate. “We are going to do this for all children,” concludes Willems.
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