6 | THINK PINK Breast Cancer Awareness Month
OCTOBER 14, 2020
Coping through the unimaginable Baby Zoey has rare and agressive form of cancer, but community offers support
For the next six months, Zoey would undergo six rounds of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant (meaning Zoey got her own bone marrow back), radiation and then immunotherapy. She is currently in the immunotherapy stage, which helps get the immune system back to normal. This will likely take about six more months. “The last eight months have had a lot of ups and downs – a constant battle of the unknown,” Whitney said. “So far, Zoey has exceeded doctors’ expectations. She is still sick but she never had to be in the ICU like they were anticipating,” Whitney said. “You would never know if you saw her that she was a sickly child.” The Crenwelge family has now been home for two straight months, the longest they have been home since Zoey was first diagnosed.
By McKenzie Moellering
F
Standard-Radio Post reporter
our months after their daughter’s birth in July 2019, the Crenwelge family got unimaginable news: Whitney and Zach’s newborn daughter, Zoey, had tumors on her liver and one on her left adrenal gland. “We had decided we wanted another child and up until this point, everything had gone normally, from the pregnancy to the birth,” Zoey’s mother, Whitney said. “I was on maternity leave and planned to return to teaching on Oct. 31.” Whitney and Zach noticed that Zoey’s belly looked distended. “We figured she was really full. There were signs something was not normal, but at the time, we didn’t know those were signs of cancer,” Whitney said. At her four-month appointment, Dr. Kristi Stafford figured that Zoey’s liver had just grown faster than the rest of her body, but felt like an ultrasound was needed just to be sure. Within hours of results of the ultrasound, the family was sent to Methodist Children’s Hospital in San Antonio. “It was unthinkable, the unimaginable was happening to us,” Whitney said. “We were frozen. What do you do except cry?” Zoey was admitted and for nine days underwent several tests and scans. Results came back normal until a final scan that showed the MYCN gene was amplified. “We were hoping this meant it was an intermediate risk and there would be a few rounds of chemotherapy and then we would be done,” Whitney said. “But the liver biopsy came back and showed the gene was amplified, which made her highrisk neuroblastoma.” That meant the cancer was both rare and aggressive. “They couldn’t really tell us what this meant for her, just that it was very rare and very hard to treat,” Whitney said. “We felt
Zoey Crenwelge, 15 months, was diagnosed with an aggressive and high-risk form of neuroblastoma in November 2019. Since then, she has gone through chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and radiation. She is now in the immunotherapy stage. — Submitted photo
a little hopeless but we knew she was a strong girl. We wanted things to go a different way but we knew it was time to start treatment.”
Treatment plan Because of the intensity of the diagnosis, an aggressive treatment plan was put into place.
Prognosis While the future is uncertain, the Crenwelges are remaining optimistic. “We still cry a lot, but we just have to think about going forward and we are we going to make the most of her life,” Whitney said. “We are learning to live day by day.” Zoey has continued to develop like most babies. She started crawling around 13 months and has started talking. “It’s been so nice to be home living and not be stuck in the hospital,” Whitney said. There are still concerns for Zoey’s future. Because she is high-risk, her chance of relapse is 50% or greater. Her chemotherapy drug could lead to leukemia. Another drug may cause hearing problems. “Going through all the paperwork and learning about these medications and their side effects is hard because we don’t know what we could be possibly causing in the future,” Whitney said. The family continues to look forward and do whatever they can to get their daughter
