Brave battles & Heartbreaking loss
Surgery
Parker embraced the move from North Carolina to Utah in 2020 but soon faced a health crisis, landing her in Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. Misdiagnoses led to late June hospitalization, revealing a mass in her abdomen.
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July saw her first surgery to remove the blockage, the cancer diagnosis followed. A second surgery in August was undertaken to ensure complete removal of any and all cancer.
All hoped the surgeries would be her cure.
Chemotherapy
An MRI in November identified a small mass in a different abdominal location. By January 2021, scans revealed significant growth and additional tumors.
Parker underwent a third surgery for mass removal. Pathology reclassified her cancer as 'infantile fibrosarcoma'. She then began targeted treatment with a MEK inhibitor, initially successful but later unsuccessful.
Chemotherapy commenced in May 2021 with dactinomycin & vincristine, shrinking tumors but raising concerns of insufficient response. This led to a shift to more potent ifosfamide and doxorubicin due to potential recurrence or spread risks.
Radiation
Over the course of the summer of 2021, Parker completed multiple rounds of chemotherapy. By August, imagining showed two of the tumors had responded to chemotherapy, but that two areas were enlarging and increasingly PET avid.
In September 2021, Parker had aggressive surgery to remove the diseased areas. Post recovery, she spent over a month in New York City undergoing whole abdomen radiation at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Parker's first scan of 2022 occurred in January and showed no signs of visible disease or tumors. However, just over a month later, imaging would show multiple masses all measuring greater than 5CMs and all demonstrating aggressive growth rates.
End of treatment
In April of 2022, Parker was once again admitted to Primary Children's Hospital, but this time she never came home.
With all options having been explored and existed, treatment was replaced by palliative care. After several weeks, with her parents by her side, Parker passed away.
Parker was 11yrs old.