After running numerous tests at Children’s Hospital Colorado, doctors discovered that Piper had a mass in her neck. The results of an emergency MRI revealed that the preschooler had cancer, a one-in-a-million location of Ewing Sarcoma, which is usually a bone cancer, growing as a soft tumor in her spine. Piper was immediately admitted to the Children’s Colorado Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders (CCBD). After 14 rounds of chemotherapy every other week – and more than 30 days of radiation, Piper’s CCBD care team delivered the good news: she was cancer free. Throughout her treatment, Ralph, the “dogtor,” from the hospital’s Medical Dog Program, was by her side, along with Kizzy, a child life specialist to whom the family affectionately refers to as “Ralph’s mommy.” Today, Piper is a creative, spunky, big-hearted elementary schooler. She is still in physical and occupational therapy for her right hand, and she has to have iron removed from her body through regular blood draws, because she had so many blood transfusions over the course of her treatment. But the family said they have made it through some of the toughest days of their ordeal with the help of support from every area of the hospital.
