Ariella

My name is Ariella and I am 10 years old and in the fourth grade. I was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in February of this year after having a lot of pain in my leg, especially when dancing. I have been dancing for 6 years, dancing all styles but my favorite is tap. I had to miss a lot of dance class time because of the pain. Soon after the pain got really bad I had an MRI and they found a tumor in my right tibia. I had a lot of diagnostic tests and was told I had to stop dancing. The biopsy confirmed Ewing’s Sarcoma which had not spread. I am on the competitive dance team and that meant no more dancing or competing this year. They scheduled me to have a hickman catheter placed and to start chemo but when they did the surgery to put in the catheter they punctured my lung and I had to have a chest tube, so chemo was delayed. My chemo schedule is every 2 weeks for either 2 days or 5 days and I just finished the first 3 months. In between chemo rounds I get a shot in my arm every day. It is called Neupogen. I’m about to have surgery to remove the tumor and repair the bone in my leg and will have an external fixator for 1 to 3 months. Once that is off I will be needing a plastic brace which I can take on and off. After my surgery I received another 6 months of chemo and finished my treatment in December. Because of my aggressive chemo schedule I am too immunocompromised to attend school so I have a tutor 3 days a week and have FaceTimed with my class. I am going to miss the beginning half of the fifth grade but hopefully will be back shortly after the new year. My least favorite thing about going through all of this is that I can not see my friends most of the time. The thing that helped me get through this are the child life specialists and all the great staff at the hospital and most of all, all the support.

Update February 2019
Ariella finished treatment for Ewing’s Sarcoma in December 2017 but scans in June showed she had relapsed to her lungs and back.  She went through about 8 rounds of chemo (trying 2 different regimens) which didn’t seem to work. Switching medicines and 24 rounds of SBRT radiation has stabilized her condition enough to have a bone marrow transplant (from her father) this month.

Update May 2019
It is with great sorrow we share that Ariella succumbed to Ewing’s Sarcoma on May 9. 2019.