Meet Greta. (and Levi)
Greta has a lot of plans.
Greta is six years old and very busy being six.
She loves swimming and crafts, candy and animals. She loves school and her friends. She loves swimming, playing hide and go seek with her big brother and sisters and has very strong opinions about how things should be done.
When she grows up, she wants to be a veterinarian. And a babysitter. Maybe both.
She is funny, curious, stubborn and determined. The kind of kid who knows what she wants and generally figures out a way to get there.
For most of her life, cancer has tried to interrupt those plans.
But it hasn’t stopped her.
Her cancer story started with a headache.
Greta was two when her mom took her to the pediatrician after a few days of vomiting and complaints that her head hurt.
Within days, she was undergoing a nine-hour brain surgery.
The diagnosis was ependymoma, a rare brain cancer. And this was just 18 months after her family unexpectedly lost her dad Mark.
Greta's life, and her family's, changed almost overnight.
17 brain surgeries.
65 rounds of radiation.
Months in hospitals across the country.
Greta has had to relearn how to swallow.
And how to walk.
More than once.
Greta's journey so far.
Diagnosed at age 2
First brain surgery
Multiple surgeries
Proton radiation
Rehabilitation
No evidence
of cancer
Cancer returns
More surgery
More treatment
CAR-T immunotherapy
in Seattle
Pursuing a personalized
mRNA cancer vaccine