Grandma and Her Toddler Granddaughter Face Cancer at the Same Time: 'The Most Surreal Thing'

A grandmother and her little granddaughter face cancer at the same time.

Alicia Fivecoat, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, was getting blood work done at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in January when her young granddaughter, Whitney, was diagnosed with leukemia at nearby Texas Children’s Hospital.

“It was the most surreal thing,” Fivecoat, 62, said Good morning America. “We were literally running from MD Anderson to Texas Childrens, trying to just get there.”

Fivecoat’s daughter Shelly McAfee and her husband Tyler McAfee were told Whitney had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer of the bone marrow and blood, after she had swelling and bruising around her eye that later spread to the other eye.

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Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

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After the cancer diagnosis, Whitney began chemotherapy. Her treatments required Shelly and Tyler to stay at Texas Children’s Hospital, a two-hour drive from their home, for more than 40 days. GMA reported.

Fivecoat, meanwhile, began chemotherapy for breast cancer around the same time, the paper said.

“My mom’s chemotherapy schedule fell on a Friday, so there were times when my mother-in-law would bring her for treatment and they would actually stay with Whitney and my husband and I would be at home with our son,” Shelly told the newspaper. , referring to her and Tyler’s other child, a four-year-old.

She added, “It was a good time for her to be there, to hang out with Whitney, but also a time to rest, and in case she wasn’t feeling well or needed to go back to MD Anderson, she was right there.”

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Patient with IV (photo).

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Later in June, Whitney underwent a life-saving bone marrow transplant. Two months later, Fivecoat had a double mastectomy.

In the midst of their treatments, both grandmother and granddaughter lost their hair – a side effect of their chemotherapy.

“When you know your granddaughter, who wasn’t even a year old at the time, has already had that treatment, it makes me realize, ‘You know what, I can do that,'” Fivecoat said. GMA.

“There were a few different instances where I was afraid of what I was coming up with, and Shelly would say, ‘Mom, Whitney’s already done that.’ So I said, ‘Well, okay, I can do this too, you know,'” she added by way of exit.

Medical staff in the operating room (photo).

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Looking ahead, Fivecoat said GMA that she still has about eight chemotherapy treatments left, which will be followed by reconstructive breast surgery.

Whitney, for her part, responded well to her transplant, the paper reported.

Tyler said GMA that his child and his mother-in-law’s diagnoses “reminder how fragile life is.”

“And obviously it doesn’t matter how old you are or what stage of life you’re in, you never know what the next stage will bring,” he added.

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Source: HIS Education