Ariel Griffith.Photo: GoFundMe
Ariel Griffith’s family got some extra-difficult news after learning the 13-year-old had sepsis andcoronavirus: She also has leukemia.
Ariel’s mother, Lauren Hocin, opened up about her daughter’s medical issues toTODAY Health, revealing that Ariel was “vomiting and throwing up” on Dec. 8 and the family assumed she had contracted COVID-19, since her stepfather had tested positive for the virus a week before.
“I noticed when I went to wake her, her face looked swollen,” Hocin said. “It was in her lymph-node area. I said, ‘That doesn’t look right.’ Ariel said she had noticed it but was afraid to tell anyone. It had been like that for weeks.”
The young honor student and basketball player went to a doctor a few days later, when she learned she had leukemia. And despite receiving devastating news, Hocin is “thankful” for the physician who saw her daughter.
“Instead of saying,‘Your lymph nodes are swollenbecause of coronavirus,’ she insisted on a blood test,” Hocin recalled toTODAY Health. “It came back that her white blood cell count was very low, along with platelets, and she was sent to the emergency room.”
Ariel Griffith.GoFundMe
According toTODAY Health, Ariel started chemotherapy last Friday. Hocin gave an update on her daughter’s progress over the weekend on her Facebook and Ariel’sGoFundMepage, which had raised about half of the family’s $50,000 goal as of Monday afternoon.
“Sadness has definitely taken over but I have to remind myself ‘small miracles.’ I cannot even begin to tell you how many signs from God I’ve seen in the last few days, without a single doubt, and many of you have shown me over and over and over again,” Hocin wrote.
The mother of three went on to say that Ariel “is doing ok” but “fighting for her life” too. “She’s still on the ventilator & they have added a feeding tube which she is responding well to,” Hocin continued. “Her lungs aren’t strong enough to breathe on her own, they tried to wean off some of the meds to see how she did & she did not respond well so she’s right back on the meds to be completely asleep. However! This just means sheneeds more time for her lungs to heal& that’s ok. She has GOT to beat COVID so she can beat leukemia.”
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In a Sunday update on Facebook, Hocin said her daughter was “a little swollen today because of the chemo but it’s doing its jobflushing out the cancer from her blood.”
“This is putting some stress on her lungs so I pray that calms in the next few days. She also had another blood transfusion today to help her blood cells but overall, nothing alarming. Just so much going on all at once for her to bounce back from but I’m being told she’s a tough cookie,” she continued. “I believe that wholeheartedly.”
Hocin toldTODAY Healththat this experience “has been a roller coaster … but to see she has some improvements [is] a mother’s dream. She is on a ventilator. A machine is breathing for her. They tried to wake her up the other day and she didn’t handle it well. She had coughing fits. Seeing she is improving means the world to me.”
As for her inspiration in sharing her daughter journey, “Ariel’s story is going to help other people,” Hocin said. “We are in pieces over the support we have gotten. Our neighbors are delivering things every day. I can’t even beginto describe the amount of supportwe have had. I just can’t tell you what it will create in me to do with others. This is breeding an even bigger passion in me to help other moms going through the same thing.”
As information about thecoronavirus pandemicrapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources fromCDC,WHO, andlocal public health departments.PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMeto raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, clickhere.
source: people.com
