Grandma, Toddler Granddaughter Face Most cancers on the Similar Time

A grandmother and her toddler granddaughter are going through most cancers on the identical time.

Alicia Fivecoat, who was just lately recognized with breast most cancers, was getting bloodwork achieved at MD Anderson Most cancers Heart in Houston in January, when her younger granddaughter Whitney was recognized with leukemia close by at Texas Kids’s Hospital.

“It was essentially the most surreal factor,” Fivecoat, 62, instructed Good Morning America. “We had been actually operating from MD Anderson to Texas Kids’s, making an attempt to only 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 prognosis, Whitney started chemotherapy. Her therapies required Shelly and Tyler to remain at Texas Kids’s Hospital, which is a two-hour drive from their residence, for greater than 40 days, GMA reported.

Fivecoat, in the meantime, started chemotherapy for her breast most cancers across the identical time, in keeping with the outlet.

“My mother’s chemo schedule fell on a Friday, so there have been instances the place my mother-in-law would convey her to remedy, and they might really stick with Whitney, and each my husband and I might be at residence with our son,” Shelly instructed the outlet, referencing her and Tyler’s different youngster, a 4-year-old.

She added, “It was time for her to be there, to hang around with Whitney, but in addition 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 therapies, each grandmother and granddaughter misplaced their hair — a aspect impact of their chemotherapy.

“When you recognize that your granddaughter, who at that time wasn’t even a yr outdated, has already achieved that remedy, it made me understand, ‘ what, I can do that,’ ” Fivecoat instructed GMA.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 achieved that.’ So I am like, ‘Effectively, okay, I can do that too, you recognize,’ ” she added to the outlet.

Wanting forward, Fivecoat instructed GMA that she has about eight extra chemotherapy therapies left to finish, which can then be adopted by breast reconstructive surgical procedure.

Whitney, for her half, has responded effectively to her transplant, the outlet reported.

Tyler instructed GMA that his youngster and his mother-in-law’s diagnoses “remind you ways fragile life is.”

“And that it doesn’t clearly matter how outdated you might be or what stage you might be in your life, you by no means know what the following stage will convey,” he added.