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SALT LAKE CITY — A toddler from Cache County is battling leukemia for the second time. But the girl and her family are finding hope in the care she is receiving at Primary Children’s Hospital.
Nicole Peterson will turn 3 years old next month. You can't help but fall in love with her smile — a smile that is always easy to find, according to her parents.
“She is so cheerful all the time,” father James Peterson said. “It is amazing to me. She is a strength to me. She is so good about it.”
Nicole is the youngest of seven children. At four months old, she was diagnosed with the rare and difficult to treat acute undifferentiated leukemia.
She spent the next 10 months under the watchful care of doctors and nurses at Primary Children’s.
“The nurses really mean a lot to me,” said Cathy Peterson, Nicole’s mother. “They have become her second mom in taking care of her. They spent a lot of nights when we were first diagnosed with her, just rocking her and taking care of her, being the mom for me when I had to go take care of my other kids. I knew she was safe.”
Chemotherapy began immediately, followed by radiation, with several close calls in between.
Her parents credit a donor they have never met, a woman named Laura, with providing life-saving bone marrow that Nicole received in a transplant two years ago.
Nicole’s cancer went into remission and she appeared to be in good health — until a relapse in February.
“As hard as it has been to go through this cancer twice now, to know these people really care, the staff at Primary honestly have a gift to work with children, they are meant to be there and I know we could not have done this journey without the people who have surrounded us,” Cathy Peterson said.
After more chemotherapy and radiation, Nicole is scheduled for another bone marrow transplant in 10 days. This time, though, her father will act as the donor.
The transplant will be one of the the first parent-to-child transplants performed at Primary Children’s.
“Because of the success of the first transplant and because this relapse was diagnosed and caught early,” James Peterson said, “they will be able to use me as the donor this time.”
Nicole's parents say they are at peace with Nicole's treatment because of their faith and knowing their daughter's battle is being fought at Primary Children's
“They just don’t take care of the child,” Cathy Peterson said, “they take care of the entire family.”
Nicole’s story is just one of the many miracles at Primary Children’s, her father said.
“Miracles happen all the time at Primary Children’s,” James Peterson said. “So many lives are blessed and so many children are treated with the best possible care.”
