Girl Creates 'Chemo Backpack': Cancer Survivor Helps Other Patients with Portable IV Drip (Video)

Meet Kylie Simonds: an 11-year-old cancer survivor who's invented an on-the-go cancer treatment.

Kylie was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma when she was only 8--a type of malignant cancer that occurs in muscles that attach to bones. Since her treatments, she's no longer sick and all of her hair has grown back. However, Kylie remembers dealing with all the unpleasantness of the problem.

"It was hard to walk around, and I always had to have someone push it for me because I was ... weak when I was in chemo," said Kylie, who told WTNH reported via the Huffington Post, how exhausting the intravenous IV poles and chemotherapy treatments were.

Kylie had two close friends in mind when she first thought of the invention. Marik and Brooke, who are both cancer patients, were also struggling with their treatments. To help them and other patients, Kylie invented the pediatric IV backpack. The ‘chemo backpack' carries a portable IV machine for patients receiving chemotherapy or a transfusion, and is "very light and ... more convenient," according to Kylie.

The current mockup includes a Hello Kitty design with a battery-powered IV controller to regulate chemotherapy levels for patients. On the top right corner of the device is a small cage that can hold the IV bag safely, according to Yahoo News.

"I think it's a wonderful idea. The stigma would fall away from seeing an IV pole [and] it would be very useful for pediatric oncology patients in providing them much more mobility and freedom," said Birte Wistinghausen, M.D., clinical director of the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Mount Sinai Hospital, via Yahoo News. 

The evention gained so much notoriety, that Kylie even won a patient prize on the project for her school. However, she's not stopping, there.

Her next goal is to fund manufacturing for the product. She's started a GoFundMe page with a goal of raising $20,000 within two weeks. So far, she's raised about $4,000.

Want to learn more about the invention? Check out this video, courtesy of YouTube.