A grandmother and her toddler granddaughter are dealing with most cancers on the identical time.
Alicia Fivecoat, who was not too long ago recognized with breast most cancers, was getting bloodwork executed at MD Anderson Most cancers Heart in Houston in January, when her younger granddaughter Whitney was recognized with leukemia close by at Texas Youngsters’s Hospital.
“It was probably the most surreal factor,” Fivecoat, 62, instructed Good Morning America. “We had been actually operating from MD Anderson to Texas Youngsters’s, making an attempt to simply get there.”
Fivecoat’s daughter, Shelly McAfee, and her husband, Tyler McAfee, had been instructed that Whitney had been recognized with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is a most cancers of the bone marrow and the blood, after she had swelling and bruising round her eye that later unfold to her different eye.
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After her most cancers analysis, Whitney started chemotherapy. Her remedies required Shelly and Tyler to remain at Texas Youngsters’s Hospital, which is a two-hour drive from their house, for greater than 40 days, GMA reported.
Fivecoat, in the meantime, started chemotherapy for her breast most cancers across the identical time, based on the outlet.
“My mother’s chemo schedule fell on a Friday, so there have been instances the place my mother-in-law would deliver her to remedy, and they’d really stick with Whitney, and each my husband and I might be at house with our son,” Shelly instructed the outlet, referencing her and Tyler’s different baby, a 4-year-old.
She added, “It was time for her to be there, to hang around with Whitney, but additionally a time to relaxation, and within the occasion that she did not really feel nice or wanted to return to MD Anderson, she was proper there.”
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Later in June, Whitney underwent a lifesaving bone marrow transplant. Two months later, Fivecoat had a double mastectomy.
Amid their respective remedies, each grandmother and granddaughter misplaced their hair — a facet impact of their chemotherapy.
“When you recognize that your granddaughter, who at that time wasn’t even a yr previous, has already executed that remedy, it made me notice, ‘ what, I can do that,’ ” Fivecoat instructed GMA.
“There have been a number of totally different situations the place I used to be scared about what I had developing, and Shelly would go, ‘Mother, Whitney’s already executed that.’ So I am like, ‘Nicely, okay, I can do that too, you recognize,’ ” she added to the outlet.
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Wanting forward, Fivecoat instructed GMA that she has about eight extra chemotherapy remedies left to finish, which can then be adopted by breast reconstructive surgical procedure.
Whitney, for her half, has responded nicely to her transplant, the outlet reported.
Tyler instructed GMA that his baby and his mother-in-law’s diagnoses “remind you ways fragile life is.”
“And that it doesn’t clearly matter how previous you’re or what stage you’re in your life, you by no means know what the following stage will deliver,” he added.
