She is a cancer survivor, cured of neuroblastoma several years ago. Grace was a thriving seventeen-month-old toddler living in Paducah, Kentucky, when she developed swelling and a bruised appearance around her right eye. The pediatrician initially thought it a black eye from some trauma. When it did not improve over several days, the doctor did a more thorough examination and suspected the liver was enlarged or a mass was in the abdomen.An ultrasound of the abdomen showed a mass in the adrenal gland and liver. Ultrasound of the eye orbit was nondiagnostic. Magnetic resonance imaging of the head was done with anaesthesia, to keep Grace from moving. A mass was infiltrating the bones about the right eye and extended into the sella. The sella is the part of the skull at the base of the brain where the hypothalamus and pituitary gland are located.The pediatrician referred Grace to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. She explained to Grace’s concerned parents that this was serious. Grace almost certainly had a cancer, and it had spread.
