Olivia Bono

Olivia was diagnosed with cancer in May of last year. She had just turned three the weekend before and had picked up a cold but was her usually spunky self. Our pediatrician checked both Livie and our younger daughter, Molly, out and said, thankfully, it wasn’t Covid but just a little virus. One night a week later, she hadn’t had much of an appetite at dinner and when I changed her for bed I noticed her belly still seemed rather large and she said she had a little tummy ache. So the next morning I called our pediatrician and asked to do a quick check. I thought I was likely overreacting but something told me to just take her in. We met with the new PA since it was a same-day appointment and she paused and asked if we were willing to wait a minute while she asked our regular pediatrician to come take a second look. I’m so grateful she did because when he came in and felt her stomach he grew very concerned. He said the quickest way to check and rule everything out was to go to MUSC Children’s Emergency. I remember freaking out and saying to him, “My mind is going to the worst possible place. Please tell me what you’re thinking.” He responded that he was worried about possible malignancy. When we got to the emergency room, they ran every test you can think of and confirmed that Livie had advanced cancer of the kidneys, called Wilms’ Tumors. She was likely born with it and they’ve been growing very slowly but by that point, our oncologist stated her entire left kidney had been consumed and would be removed and only about ½ of her right kidney could be saved. We were absolutely shocked. I remember looking at Livie and thinking that it wasn’t real, it was a dream, and that they’d made some kind of horrible mistake because she was healthy, she ate well, played well, and had no symptoms of something so horrible. I also felt like I’d failed her. How could this have been in her body since birth and I didn’t know? Mother’s Day weekend, Livie underwent her first surgery to place her chemo port. We went to the ER on Thursday, Friday she had surgery, and Saturday she started her first round of chemo. They went at it aggressively but she got very sick and started to lose both her hair and weight. Thankfully, they put her on an appetite stimulant to help combat the weight loss and she’s done really well. St Jude’s wrote the protocol on attacking Livie’s type of cancer so we did two rounds of chemo (6 weeks each)

Olivia likes to color, legos and play house.

- Lego Beach Amusement Park - Crayola Wixels - Light Board - Magnetic dot art - Create with clay turtle lagoon - Lego table - Light up blue scooter - Grocery Go Karts Board game