Cora Lane

My name is Cali, I am Abby’s sister. We are all praying and coming together to support the Nazeck family as they navigate this path to heal Cora. Obviously our biggest challenge is Cora’s healthcare, but in addition to that, doctors have mentioned that she needs to be within an hour of the hospital for most of the next year. This is very difficult when they live almost 3 hours from the hospital . We are all working to support them while their other three kids are home and they are down with Cora, on top of Covid making hospital visitation and health risks even more difficult. Below is Cora’s story. We genuinely appreciate each and every prayer and act of kindness and generosity to help their family during this unimaginable time. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Cora has had a healthy childhood for the first 4.5 years of her life. We never would have thought in a million years that she was sick...like really sick. Just 5 days ago, we were visiting cousins and she played the whole weekend just like she always does. Sometime in July, Josh noticed that Cora had a lump under each arm. He told me, I felt them, we could tell they were lymph nodes and they did feel inflamed, but she had just been on antibiotics for an infection, so that seemed to make sense.  In August, Cora fell on the trampoline and cut her cheek open. We took her into urgent care to get stitches, and after waiting for 3+ hours they glued it closed in about 5 seconds. Obviously urgent care is there to handle the single issue presented in front of them, but in hindsight I just think it's interesting that all of her vitals were normal and there was no cause for a doctor to be concerned.  In September, Cora and Josh were wrestling and she fell at one point and cried in a way that worried us both. She said her back hurt so bad and it was tingling. We thought maybe she pinched a nerve in her back or something when she landed. From that moment on, she had complained about her back hurting pretty much every day. Late September, my sister in law noticed a bump behind Cora’s ear while my sister was braiding her hair. It was definitely new. This had me concerned, so I started googling. A little seed of fear was planted, but I kept pushing it down...how could this be anything serious? There’s no way that’s possible. She was jumping on the trampoline, bouncing in a bounce house, playing with cousins, riding bikes, being a totally normal kid. We decided to get her checked out by the pediatrician and just talk about the back pain and the swollen lymph nodes and the lump behind her ear. We called and they wouldn’t see us right away because we had runny noses in the house, so they pushed us out a week. In that week we tried stretches and massages and the stretches seemed to help...she didn’t complain about her back at all that week. Then we went in on October 8 to get her checked out. I told the doc everything. She ordered some labs and told us to do more stretches. She thought it could easily be a back injury and some swollen lymph nodes due to the infection she had a couple months previously. The labs were just to double check that nothing else was going on. We scheduled a follow up appointment for October 22. On October 12, the pediatrician’s office called and said the doc wanted to see us sooner because her schedule opened up. My heart sank to the deepest depth...I know the office clerks can’t say things over the phone or imply that there’s another reason, but I thought it was highly unlikely that she was moving us up over a week because her schedule changed. We set an appointment for October 14 at 8:15am. We kept talking about other possibilities: ‘well maybe she’s going out of town that week and just wanted to squeeze all her appointments in early??’ ‘Maybe Cora has some weird infection and she’ll need to start antibiotics right away?’ As the minutes ticked by, the fear that used to be at the back of my mind was now consuming me. In those 2 days, Cora also felt another lump at the back of her neck, she started to get a mild rash on her torso, and she was getting itchy. Dr. google was confirming my worst fears and I was absolutely terrified that our lives were going to change forever on Wednesday morning. Morning of the 14th, we took the boys to school and Gwen to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and then headed to the doctors. Doctor came into the room and asked us how we were. We said we were freaking out a little bit, she said I’m sure you are...I know...I’m so sorry...we wanted to get you in as soon as we could. And then said the words that made me feel like I’m in a floating cloud of darkness, not able to function or think clearly: “Unfortunately, Cora has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. I’ve talked with the oncologist at CHLA and you’ll be heading down there today.” I have no doubt that Cora will beat this and that she will handle most of it like a champ. She has an outstanding prognosis at one of the best hospitals in the country. It’s going to be a rough year, but luckily, we have some experience with rough years and we know that we can get through this one too. We have faith in God that he will protect Cora throughout this process and we have so many loved ones who offer so much support. We are so so grateful for that. Thank you all. Please keep up the prayers ❤️❤️ Abby “Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything. He who has God finds he lacks nothing.” (Saint Teresa of Avila) “The Rosary is the 'weapon' for these times.” (St. Pio of Pietrelcina)