Patient stories: Scarlett Redmon woke up in pain days before her sixth birthday. A leukemia diagnosis left her family heartbroken but resolved.

Scarlett Redmon, a dance-loving little girl who had spent her day playing with friends  and enjoying time in school, woke her parents one night telling them she was in pain. Scarlett’s mother had gone through growing pains as a child and thought her daughter must be experiencing the same. Comforted by her parents, Amber and Justin, and given Tylenol, Scarlett went back to sleep.

Amber was her teacher at school and noticed the next day that Scarlett couldn’t seem to walk, sit or even just stand still without hurting. In the end, her parents took her to the emergency room to get some help and hopefully some answers.

“They were trying some pretty heavy-duty medicines, even morphine, but they weren’t really able to control Scarlett’s pain,” said Amber. “They decided to keep her in the hospital overnight until they could give her an MRI to try to figure out what was causing it.”

The MRI showed a buildup of fluid on her hip, and she was sent into surgery right away to remove it. Scarlett, with Amber and Justin by her side, remained in the hospital for a week as her doctors worked hard to understand why her symptoms and the results on her lab work weren’t matching. She was seen by Prisma Health doctors from multiple specialties, including orthopedics, pediatrics, rheumatology, infectious disease and hematology. Everyone worked together trying to understand what was going wrong in this little girl’s body and what they could do.

Then, just as the problems with her hip began to resolve, Scarlett began to have fluid buildup in one shoulder and new pain. After a full-body MRI and a bone marrow biopsy, the teams of physicians had their answer: Scarlett Redmon had cancer. She was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

“When we received that news, my knees gave way and I fell to the hospital floor. Scarlett’s doctors sat with me and my husband, they cried with us and were so compassionate and gentle,” said Amber. “They were able to give us information bit by bit and so patiently explain the diagnosis to us. I’m thankful for that.”

Now that the Redmon family knew what was causing Scarlett’s pain, they could sit down with her treatment team and come up with a plan.

“Scarlett was diagnosed in September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month,” said Amber. “On top of that, she was actually diagnosed on September 4^th which is World Leukemia Day.”

Scarlett remained hospitalized for a week after receiving her diagnosis while her port was placed and her doctors monitored how she did with her initial round of treatments.

She went home from the hospital on her 6^th birthday.

Amber was grateful to Scarlett’s entire care team, from pediatric hematology oncology specialists Anna Hoppmann, MD, Stuart Cramer, MD and Shilpa Shivakumar, MD to the nurses as well as the Child Life team for their kindness and gentleness with Scarlett.

“The wonderful Child Life team took special care of Scarlett and her older sister Bailey when making ‘blood soup’ to help explain leukemia and answer the tough questions in an age-appropriate way,” said Justin.

Amber wanted to make note of two nurses who really helped Scarlett and her mother feel safe, seen and truly cared for during a scary time

“Scarlett is known for her crazy socks,” said Amber. “She wears socks up to her knees, sometimes they have characters or wild patterns or dogs with ears coming off them. We call them her warrior socks, and she always wears them to the clinic. One day, Nurse Hannah and Nurse Eryn surprised her  by wearing matching socks with little magnetic hands. And so all three of them had these crazy googly eye hand socks, and they were all holding hands together with their socks. These nurses have so many duties and patients to care for, but they understand that Scarlett is a person, a personality, and they really tap into who these children are. Not just the nurses, but the people who greet her right at check in. They know her by name, they know her as a person and not just a diagnosis.”

For Amber, the thoughtfulness of the care team helps make everything in this difficult time a little bit easier. Another thing that has helped has been Scarlett’s return to school, where Amber is once again her teacher.

Scarlett is currently in her final phase of treatment, a year after her diagnosis. Once a month, she and her parents meet with her treatment team to check her counts, monitor her health and adjust her ongoing medications. Every three months, she has chemotherapy through her port and into her spine.

“She’s doing really well right now,” said Amber. “Her numbers are in a better range where she can be around people. She was able to head back to school, which was a huge win for her. She still has some issues with nausea and stamina. Having seen where she was before when we began this journey and where she is now, you can see that it’s different. But she’s still running, she’s still dancing and she’s still playing.”

Scarlett is doing so well, in fact, that she was able to attend CAMP KEMO, a Prisma Health camp experience for medically complex children facing cancer and other disorders that allows them to have fun and just be kids without risking their health.

“She had a blast,” said Amber. “She loved every bit and cried when she had to leave. She’s already talking about when she can go back. They have a family night coming up, so we’re going to that. Hopefully that will hold her over until next summer.”