Be an Angel for Gracey

6405 South 3000 East,Holladay UT 84121

20 May, 2022

Description

Gracey Gracey is 18 and diagnosed with Angiosarcoma (Rare cancer that has only been identified within 13 kids) in 2021; On March 15, 2022, They found out that cancer had spread throughout her whole body. She has tumors in her sternum, ribs, spine, iliac crest, both sides of her pelvis, femurs, right ovary, arms, right knee, and tibias. The family wishes for Gracey to make it to graduation this year. Her story is below... Gracey was diagnosed with Angiosarcoma just days before her 16th birthday. Her doctors stated she would have to undergo a right-sided mastectomy and radiation. They told us her cancer was rare and that there were only 13 kids with this cancer. Once in surgery to remove the tumor, they realized it was bigger than expected and had to take all the skin, part of the muscle, and all the breast tissue. Gracey needed a skin graft to cover the hole that was left. About a week after surgery, Gracey was informed that they didn’t get clean margins, and she would have to start inpatient chemo and radiation at the same time. Her chemo regiment consisted of a 5-day hospital stay while given ifosfamide and doxorubicin for two days, followed by another day of only ifosfamide. During this, she was also receiving daily radiation. By the end of month 7, she had completed treatment. They scheduled Gracey for a routine scan three months out. About a month and a half later, Gracey started having a lot of lower abdomen pain. At first, we thought it was from the side effects of the treatments she had finished, but as time went on, it became worse to the point where she couldn’t stand up straight. We went in for an ultrasound to see what was going on. We had found out her cancer was back. She had an 11cm tumor on her left ovary and another tumor in her gluteal muscle. Grace ended up going through another surgery to remove her ovary. The tumor was so large they had to open her up with an incision from her pubic bone to about 2 inches past her belly button. After surgery, she underwent another five months of chemo. This time the chemo was called paclitaxel. Once Gracey finished this round of chemo, they then removed the tumor in her gluteal muscle. For a while, Grace was doing pretty good. We thought we had seen a miracle (and in the mom’s eyes still did) that she was lowing and thriving in her life from about April 2021 to November 2021. We then found out she had new tumors in her lung, and one of them had to be removed ASAP. Grace then underwent another surgery to remove part of her lung in December 2021. We decided to start Gracey on a daily chemo pill in hopes of slowing the growth of her tumors. She started this in January 2022. Gracey started having pain shortly after, and they decided to do another routine scan to see how things were looking. The hospital did their scans on March 15, 2022, and our family (was blindsided entirely). Grace, like always, is a champ. On March 29, 2022, her latest surgery was to remove her other ovary. With all of this going on over the last two and half years, Grace still pulls straight A’s and never uses her cancer as an excuse. Grace is my warrior, and anyone who meets her knows how amazing she is. She glows like no other. There is so much I could say about her, but the list would be never-ending. This family is going through more than you can imagine behind the scenes getting through the painful experience of their 18-year-old daughter Gracey battling cancer. Yet, Jamie Brunson, her mom, and her father (lead custodian for Mardian School District) are still working every day, not to mention being a support to a family of 5 in Fillmore, UT. On top of medical bills and other expenses, anything will help out this family tremendously.