Published: February 16, 2026
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
There once was a girl named Elaina who had just turned 3 and was getting ready for big-girl school. She was nervous, but excited. Her mom noticed she was starting to walk on her tiptoes, but she thought it was just anxiety. She was also very pale, even though she called herself an “outy-outy girl” and loved playing outside. She had lots of bruises too, but she was always climbing and jumping and falling and getting back up.
She played with new friends, but she was walking and running even more strangely. And she was getting more and more bruises in stranger and stranger places, like her face. Her mommy was starting to get a little worried.
Her legs bothered her so much she couldn’t run with her friends. A few days later she couldn’t even walk. This was very scary for Elaina and her mommy and daddy.
Her mommy took her to the doctor. The doctor checked her over and looked very serious.
“I’m so sorry, but I think Elaina has leukemia, which is a kind of cancer,” the doctor said. “She needs to go straight to the emergency room at the Norton Children’s Hospital – don’t even stop at your house for anything.”
So Elaina and her mommy went straight from the doctor’s office to the hospital.
After some tests, Elaina was given a room on the 7th floor in a part of the hospital called 7 West.
The doctors gave her “sleeping medicine” the next day so she wouldn’t feel a thing when they did a special test to confirm leukemia. It was scary to get all the tests, and it hurt to get all the pokes. When Elaina woke up from the test and the sleeping medicine, she was very upset and scared, and didn’t feel good. A very nice lady, a child life specialist named Cami, brought Elaina a special calico kitty toy that smelled like lavender to make her feel better. Elaina named it Cami Kitty, and Cammi Kitty became one of Elaina’s most special friends.
The test confirmed that Elaina was sick with a disease called B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a type of cancer that messes up your white blood cells and makes it hard for your body to fight infections. Her bones were full of bad cells, and that was why they hurt so much. They weren’t making her healthy red blood cells, and that was why she was so pale and bruised. The doctors had a plan. Elaina would take special medicine called chemotherapy. This medicine fights the bad cells.
The next day, doctors put a special button in her skin that would help the medicine get into her body without lots of pokes.
Elaina had to live in the hospital day and night. Doctors and nurses gave her lots of medicine, and some of it was yucky. Sometimes she had to get new red blood cells and platelets – tiny helpers in the blood that stop bleeding – because her body couldn’t make enough of them. She had lots of nurses and doctors who talked to her and ran tests. There were also fun people who brought her toys and sang songs with her or did art with her. There was even a special playroom in the hospital that she could visit. Her favorite person was the child life specialist, Miss Taryn, and her dog, Luna. Luna would come to snuggle, take naps and even ride around the hospital floor in a wagon with Elaina!
Elaina was ready to go home after two weeks. Her mommy slept in Elaina’s room to make sure she was OK even at night. Even though Elaina was able to come home, her body was still weak. Mommy and daddy carried her wherever she needed to go.
She wasn’t home long when she got sick from an infection. Luckily, it was a very mild infection. Medicine made Elaina feel better, and she was able to come back home.
She had to start physical therapy to help her walk and get strong and fast again. Her chemo medicine also started to make Elaina’s hair fall out. Elaina was very sad, because she loved having long hair. It had just gotten long enough to fit in a ponytail, and now she wasn’t going to have any hair.
Not long after she got home, doctors couldn’t find any more cancer cells in her blood. But cancer is very tricky, and if even a little is left, it can start growing again and make you sick. Elaina still had to take lots of medicine to make sure it never ever came back.
Elaina went to the doctor every week for a long time. Anytime she got a little fever she had to go to the hospital too. Sometimes she would stay only a few hours, but sometimes she had to stay days or even weeks, because she was so sick. She missed getting to go to school. She missed seeing her friends, and she missed seeing her family who lived in other places. She even missed going to the grocery. Her favorite thing to do was to go to physical therapy, she got to play lots of games while therapists helped her walk, balance and get super strong. She also went to behavioral therapy to learn how to deal with her big emotions, because sometimes she felt really sad and sometimes she felt super mad. Sometimes she pretended to be a kitty dragon that would roar in its bed tent cave.
Elaina had to take a daily chemo pill and a weekly chemo pill and had to get antibiotics and a checkup once a month.
She continued getting better, and she was able to return to school. Elaina wasn’t used to being around other kids or being away from her mommy and daddy. She wasn’t used to getting up early, and the medicine still made her tired easily. But every day got easier. Sometimes, she still got sick, but not as often.
Soon it was spring, and the world was warm again. Elaina started to feel healthier.
She stayed mostly healthy and only missed a couple days of school here and there — no more than other kids! She was feeling strong and quick and confident. She loved school, loved her friends and loved her teachers. Most of all, she loved being a regular kid. She got to go to birthday parties, celebrate festivals and make plans with friends.
When kids finish their cancer treatment at Norton Children’s Hospital, there’s a special tradition. They ring a bell to celebrate. On Halloween, it was time for Elaina to ring the bell. She was done with the chemo and had beat leukemia! She is cancer-free!
Morgan Bowman is Elaina’s mom and wrote this story for other families with a kid facing a cancer diagnosis.