Hey Eliza

Eliza has been battling a very rare and aggressive cancer known as Rhabdoid Tumor since she was 10 months old. She has been through countless surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and study drugs to help her in her fight. 

Nothing worked. The cancer kept growing.

The last CT scan revealed 8 nodules in her right lung. Eliza's surgery and oncology team informed us that the next step would be to resect as many nodules as possible then hit the right lung again with ablative radiation. No more Phase I trials. They weren't working.

This was our last hope. For more time. Maybe a year or two.

However, there weren't 8 nodules the surgeon saw when she got to the lung. There were thousands. Thousands. Thousands of tumor "seeds" that had completely obliterated her right lung and had spread over her heart and down into her diaphragm.

Surgery and radiation were no longer viable options. 

The cruel irony is that we would have never known how aggressive this tumor was behaving inside Eliza if we hadn't opted for surgery. We were blindsided. It still doesn't feel real.

Eliza is still playful, energetic, sassy, funny, intelligent, joyful, sarcastic, bossy, kind, and fascinated with life.

We were told our incredibly inspiring daughter Eliza may have weeks, maybe less than 2 months, at most. (Per Eliza's Oncologist and Hospice Team)

The reality is that it may be only a few weeks before Eliza ends her fight and passes on. 

So, nothing else matters now more than time. And we are using the time we have left into giving Eliza  as much of a normal toddler life as possible. We are enjoying every moment with her. We cry, but we also laugh. Eliza is showing us how to live this one life we have been given. 

"There is a beginning

And an ending for everything

That is alive.

In between is living."

In the words of our little cancer warrior:

"FROG YOU, CANCER"