Children's Became Kailyn's Home Away From Home as She Fought Ewing’s Sarcoma

Though she’d rather be playing with her friends, 7-year-old Kailyn's strength and spirit shine through as she endures treatment for Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.

When Jessica Croxall noticed a small lump on her daughter Kailyn’s leg, she thought it might be an odd muscle or a swollen lymph node. She and her husband, Trent, took Kailyn to her pediatrician the next day, but initial tests and an ultrasound couldn’t determine exactly what the mass was. Finally, an MRI enabled doctors to diagnose Kailyn with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.

“It’s just an unbelievable diagnosis,” Jessica says. “It’s very hard to wrap your mind around—that a 7-year-old can have cancer in her leg when she seems perfectly healthy and perfectly fine.”

Luckily, Kailyn is fighting Ewing’s with the doctors and staff at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where doctors successfully removed the tumor from her leg three months after diagnosis. Her personalized recovery plan includes CT scans, MRIs, bone testing and almost weekly chemotherapy sessions.

Kailyn’s home away from home

While Kailyn’s treatment has been difficult, with hospital stays ranging from one to five nights at a time, she and her family have come to see the center as a home away from home. “The emotional support that not only the doctors, but the staff as a whole, provide for families is amazing,” Trent says. “In the infusion room, volunteers come in to entertain your child while she’s going through treatment. People talk to you about what you’re going through, and they really spend time with all of us to make sure that we have everything we need. It’s been incredible.”

Jessica adds, “I don’t think that words can express how thankful we are to be able to come to a place that really understands kids and treats them like gold.”

When she’s at the center, Kailyn enjoys playing with fellow childhood cancer patients, her nurses, and the toys and video games in her room at the center. Ever concerned for others, she brought brand-new dolls people had given her to share with other patients because she noticed there were only a few available.

Eyes on the prize

When Kailyn’s treatments began, her aunt gave her a puzzle with 17 pieces, one for each chemotherapy session she would go through. After each session, she gets a new piece, a special way to show how close she is to being finished with her treatment and back to being a typical 7-year-old. Simple things other kids take for granted, like sleepovers or swimming in a lake, aren’t safe for Kailyn because of her chemotherapy. Frequent hospital stays rule out most vacations and family trips. “She’d like to be able to get back into gymnastics, sports and other activities without having to worry about getting hurt,” says Jessica.

With the end of Kailyn’s treatment in sight, Trent and Jessica are beginning to think about what she can do when her treatment is over. Both hope that she uses the strength she’s gained during this experience to help others.

As far as Kailyn’s thoughts on her future, she wants to be a video game creator when she grows up. In the more immediate future, when she finishes her treatments, she looks forward to roller-skating and ice-skating with friends, and she wants a puppy. When asked what she would tell another child facing cancer, Kailyn simply says, “Any kid that has cancer is awesome.”