On January 13th, 2023 (Friday the 13th, ironically), our family’s world was turned upside down. That is the day our sweet 17 month-old, Everlee, was first hospitalized. After spending 2 weeks in our local children’s hospital, she was diagnosed with a rare type of liver cancer called hepatoblastoma. This occurs in approximately 1 in 1,000,000 children. At diagnosis, she was categorized as a stage 4, as it had started spreading to her lungs.

She underwent 6 rounds of chemo, a specialized radiation treatment, as well as removing the nodules in her lungs. Although the treatments were helping, it wasn’t enough, and she would need a liver transplant. 

Our brave girl was placed on the national transplant list and after a short wait, a match became available. She had her 12-hour life-saving surgery on August 10th, 2023. She spent 3 weeks in the hospital, healing from her surgery before being able to go home. 

Our fight didn’t stop there, and Everlee continued to receive chemo for another 15 months. At this point, we had to make the decision to take her off treatment. She was almost maxed out on the amount of chemo she could have, and her cancer was becoming resistant to the treatments. 

She’s had two more lung surgeries since and still battling her disease. We have been in the fight for over 2 1/2 years now and are keeping the faith that she will beat this disease one day. 

So many cancer patients get side effects from these toxic treatments and Everlee is no exception. One of the chemo meds has caused her to have high frequency hearing loss. This has affected her speech and requires her to wear hearing aids. 

Everlee receives both speech and hearing therapy. She has amazing therapists that come to our home and make the sessions more comfortable and natural for her. We were excited to have a wonderful photographer (and fellow transplant recipient) come to our home and capture photos of a speech session in action. 

This road is far from easy, but this little fighter of ours is so incredibly brave and takes this journey on with a smile. 

Our family will be forever thankful to PCFLV for being such a huge support to our family and our wellbeing. Allowing us to connect with other families and make friends with people who have been on this same tough journey has been so uplifting and is certainly helping us get through it. We are honored to be offered an endless amount of support and an endless number of events that allow us to have fun and smile through the tough days. So, thank you PCFLV, for sharing our stories and blessing so many families every day.

Written by The Fessler Family

Please consider helping children with cancer and others in our community by scheduling a blood donation at Miller-Keystone Blood Center: https://donor.giveapint.org/donor/schedules/zip