Sierra Forder

Thank you for all of your support, thoughts and prayers. 




Like every other mother on this website, I do not want to be here. I want to press a button and return to the days when I didn’t even know this website existed. Before chemotherapy. Before the endless hours at the hospital and the endless rounds of tests. Before the day that my happy, healthy, breastfed, thriving, smiling, cherub of a baby went to our family doctor for diarrhea and was sucked into a vortex of doctors, and blood samples, and ultrasounds, and IV tubes, and central ports. Before I ever heard of Neuroblastoma.

But, like every other mother on this website, I cannot make this go away. So I have to take a deep breath and admit to myself, to my family, to the world, and to my beautiful baby, that she is sick. She has a tumor on her kidney that could kill her. And I plan to fight with every fiber of my being to see that it doesn’t.

My daughter, Sierra is two-years-old. She loves animals, and music, and her big sister, Summer. In a sad twist of fate, she was actually diagnosed with Stage 3 Neuroblastoma on her 2nd birthday. So instead of getting a cute little cake, and going to the safari park for her birthday, she got to spend the day having blood drawn, undergoing ultrasounds, and meeting with countless doctors to discuss her future. That was on May 22nd.

As the initial grim news of her diagnosis sunk in, we had to endure two torturous weeks at the hospital while we waited to discover if Sierra’s neuroblastoma was the “favorable” kind that meant it would be receptive to chemotherapy and greatly increased her chances of survival; or the “unfavorable” kind with a likely prognosis so horrible we could not begin to comprehend. “Good” news came on June 1st when we learned that Sierra’s pathology was favorable. Sierra has Stage III, non-MYCN applified, intermediate risk neuroblastoma.


Sierra is still our sweet, smiling, happy, cherub of a baby. She still loves babies, doggies, kitties, music, and her big sister Summer. But she has a long road ahead of her over the next year. We are taking it one day at a time and hoping for the best possible outcome in a couple of months.