A grandmother and her toddler granddaughter are facing cancer at the same time.
Alicia Fivecoat, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, was getting bloodwork done at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in January, when her young granddaughter Whitney was diagnosed with leukemia nearby at Texas Children's Hospital.
“It was the most surreal thing,” Fivecoat, 62, told Good Morning America“We were literally running from MD Anderson to Texas Children's, trying to just get there.”
Fivecoat's daughter, Shelly McAfee, and her husband, Tyler McAfee, were told that Whitney had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is a cancer of the bone marrow and the blood, after she had swelling and bruising around her eye that later spread to her other eye.
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After her cancer diagnosis, Whitney began chemotherapy. Her treatments required Shelly and Tyler to stay at Texas Children's Hospital, which is a two-hour drive from their home, for more than 40 days, GMA reported.
Fivecoat, meanwhile, began chemotherapy for her breast cancer around the same time, according to the outlet.
“My mom's chemo schedule fell on a Friday, so there were times where my mother-in-law would bring her to treatment, and they would actually stay with Whitney, and both my husband and I would be at home with our son,” Shelly told the outlet, referencing her and Tyler's other child, a 4-year-old.
She added, “It was a good time for her to be there, to hang out with Whitney, but also a time to rest, and in the event that she didn't feel great or needed to go back to MD Anderson, she was right there.”
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Later in June, Whitney underwent a lifesaving bone marrow transplant. Two months later, Fivecoat had a double mastectomy.
Amid their respective treatments, both grandmother and granddaughter lost their hair — a side effect of their chemotherapy.
“When you know that your granddaughter, who at that point wasn't even a year old, has already done that treatment, it made me realize, 'You know what, I can do this,' ” Fivecoat told GMA,
“There were several different instances where I was scared about what I had coming up, and Shelly would go, 'Mom, Whitney's already done that.' So I'm like, 'Well, okay, I can do this too, you know,' ” she added to the outlet.
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Looking ahead, Fivecoat told GMA that she has about eight more chemotherapy treatments left to complete, which will then be followed by breast reconstructive surgery.
Whitney, for her part, has responded well to her transplant, the outlet reported.
Tyler told GMA that his child and his mother-in-law's diagnoses “remind you how fragile life is.”
“And that it doesn't obviously matter how old you are or what stage you are in your life, you never know what the next stage will bring,” he added.