Phelicity remains with her mother Veronica at Ohio's Nationwide Children's Hospital, in America's midwest, but craves the simple pleasures of playing with her three sisters in the backyard and sitting around the kitchen table with her family.

"She is so excited that she's coming home," Mr Sneesby said.

"And, who knows, this just might be enough to help her heal a little bit. You just don't know. When our minds start to heal maybe our bodies can a little as well.

"I know the odds are stacked against her but we will fight for her as long as she fights."

The cost of flying Phelicity home is enormous and, until a long-time family friend set up an online fundraising campaign at flyherhome.com, it seemed impossible.

"We've racked up about six credit cards buying airfares, trying to get her to America," Mr Sneesby said.

"This is our third trip this year. We've had about maybe $50,000, $60,000 in airfares just this year. It's just crazy. We've mortgaged ourselves right to the roof for bills and stuff like that because they don't stop coming in."

An internal flight to get Phelicity from the hospital to Los Angeles International Airport, plus ambulance transfers, is set to cost about $US50,000.

Mr Sneesby estimates another $10,000 would be spent for transport ambulances once Phelicity arrives in Australia.

Qantas has now stepped in to offer some assistance, and talks are continuing with medical experts and others about the form it could take.

A senior spokesman for Qantas said: "Having read the [Sun-Herald] story, Qantas as national carrier was moved by it, as anyone would be, and we reached out to the family to see if there was anything we could do to help."

Mr Sneesby said the support being offered by Qantas was "fantastic" and could mean the flight to Australia cost "maybe $65,000 instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars".

The first step is for Phelicity to do a trial run from her hospital bed on new medication, "to make sure she can survive 30 hours comfortably".

"Once we do the trial, we'll have our date booked and we'll be off," Mr Sneesby said.

"We just want to have her home. We know we're probably in for some very sad times but we'd rather do that here than in an American hospital. We love the hospital there, we love the teams, they're amazing people, but some things have to to be done with family."