11/03/2026
Why do we run The Biggest Playdate, what is our connection to Monash Children's Cancer Centre? 💛
This is Taylah's story...
November 2014. Taylah was a bright Year 9 student, who had recently been experiencing fatigue, headaches and lightheadedness. Anemia? Disordered eating? What was wrong? A few weeks of investigating at Monash Children's Cancer Centre (CCC) revealed the worst. Taylah was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
Blood cancers like Taylah's are treated over years. The first hurdle is getting into remission, which involved heavy chemotherapy and steroids for about a month. A few days before Christmas 2014, Taylah was in remission.
For the next 2 and a half years, Taylah went through many procedures and had lots of medicine that made her body deteriorate. But that's what was necessary to get rid of her cancer, and to save her life.
During this time, the idea for The Biggest Playdate was made (thanks Georgina!). It was at a time when the new Monash Children's Hospital was being built. The first Biggest Playdate was held in 2016 and was a great success. It was how the Miranda family could say thank you to the CCC for treating Taylah and giving them hope.
Taylah finished treatment in March 2017. That year, she finished Year 12, got accepted into Biomedical Science at Monash University, and began her journey into adulthood, forever changed.
Unfortunately, Taylah's cancer returned in 2019. She endured another of year of chemotherapy, radiation and egg freezing. She was in remission again in January 2021. Since then, her cancer has not returned.
Taylah was treated at Monash Children's Cancer Centre. The staff - from the highly skilled doctors, empathetic nurses, and the kind cleaners - everyone who worked at that Cancer Center, supported Taylah & her family through both diagnoses.
The Miranda family cannot thank Monash CCC enough for Taylah's happy ending. However, they also saw children suffer greatly, and some pass away. And that is why they fundraise.
The Biggest Playdate is about the community coming together to acknowledge the amazing work at Monash CCC, and to support them - whether it's by funding clinical care roles, or funding important research so that children aren't facing the side effects of toxic chemotherapy, and so that more children can go on to live a long life.
Join us at The Biggest Playdate this year. Sunday 15th March / Aspendale Gardens Community Centre 🎗