EDITOR'S NOTE: September is Childhood Cancer Aware-
ness Month. This account is written by Shelby Lane about her daughter, Zayleigh Roselynn Lane.
On March 15, 2019, I took Zayleigh to her pediatrician to see why her back and feet had been hurting and why she had blood in her urine with a high fever.
They ran X-rays, blood work, urine and flu tests. That all came back negative.
They couldn't find anything wrong.
On Wednesday March 16, Zayleigh spiked a high fever and had a fever most of March.
I even noticed the knot in her belly had gotten bigger.
I took her into the ER to find out why Zayleigh was hurting, had a knot in her belly and a high fever.
The next day we took Zayleigh to the the Dallas Children's Hospital ER to get a second opinion on her "upper respiratory infection" that the Texarkana doctor said she had.
After several long hours getting ultrasounds X-rays, CT, an NG tube in her nose, two IVs with many veins blow. we got admitted into Dallas Children's Hospital at 4 a.m. - still with no positive diagnose.
On Friday, March 18, she got more blood work done and another CT, an echo on her heart and a urine test done that gave us a positive answer for the "knot" in her belly.
The next day, they did more blood and put in the another IV because she kept ripping them out.
They came in and told me Zayleigh has neuroblastoma cancer. It's 70% of her abdomen; All of her organs are pushed and being mashed.
On Sunday, March 20, She got a biopsy to see what stage the cancer was and other tests on it and she got a bone marrow test to see if the cancer was in her bones. She also got a port.
During the biopsy, they learned that she didn't have beuroblastoma. She had a rare cancer called Malignant Ectomesenchymoma. The cancer wasn't detected in her blood until after the biopsy and that's why her pediatrician missed it.
Zayleigh became a part of a study that will follow her for the rest of her life and see how she's doing. Researchers can learn more about this type of cancer and try to figure out the cause and if they can find a easier way to cure it.
By Saturday afternoon she's was in much more pain then she's been in all month. She didn't sleep at all last night she cried, "Mommy, my belly hurting again."
They gave her morphine, Ativan, Tylenol 3 and none of it touched the pain.
They said if we had waited another week, Zayleigh wouldn't have been able to walk and they were right. It took a week before they could find the right chemo that would start shrinking the tumor.
During that week, the tumor grew more and caused more pain to the point she stopped walking.
She had to go through PT (Physical Therapy) to help her learn to walk again.
My best advice I could give any parent is trust your gut and always get second, third, even a fourth opinion until you get the answers you need. I know if I hadn't, I would have lost my daughter.
Cancer is a awful thing anyone can go through.
Another thing that I'd like to add I didn't give my daughter cancer. Nothing you did gave your baby cancer and I had to drill this in my head.
Everyone is born with cancer. That's scary to know.
Well how it was explained to me is we are born with cancer cells and every day they divide and multiply but these are good cancer cells. Bad cancer is formed when one cells is divided and it becomes deformed or mutated.
Well, just because it's deformed doesn't mean it stops mutating. It starts making deformed cancer cells, which are bad cancer cells and that's how cancer is formed.