3-year-old battles vision-threatening cancer

Three-year-old Taylor Rose Harden should be carefree and living the life of a princess,  but instead, she is battling a type of cancer that threatens to steal her eyesight.

Taylor is the daughter of Sunshine Harden, a single mother who is rasing her sick child with the help of her disabled father, Greg Harden, and mother, Delena Harden.  

This form of cancer, called Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS), struck suddenly in March, and now the family is reeling to pay for the expenses associated with transporting Taylor to Tucson every week for treatments. They are forced to rely on Delena's sole income because Greg cannot work and Delena must be with her daughter at all times.

"I am not working right now," said Sunshine, who had been a waitress at Chili's before her daughter's illness. "I am unable to work. I have to be with her 24/7. I can't leave her. There is no way mom can leave.

"We want to thank people in advance for anything they can help us out with. It will be put to a good cause, my three year old’s life."

The entire ordeal came as a complete shock to the family.

"She never showed any signs of symptoms, and like all of a sudden just bam," Sunshine said. "One morning she woke up and her eye was almost swollen shut and was protruding out and the pupil itself was off and looking down. So I took her to the hospital in Yuma and she got to see a nurse practitioner which said she had a scratch under her eyelid and it was infected so her eye was deferring away from the infection."

Sunshine was given a prescription for Taylor and was told to bring her daughter back two weeks later if the symptoms didn't improve.

"It wasn't better in two weeks; it was actually worse. So I took her back and the doctor she got to see that time said there was something back there and he called in an ophthalmologist ... and they said there was definitely something back there trying to push its way out."

That doctor wasn't trained specifically for children and referred the case to a specialist in Tucson on March 12.

That specialist took on Taylor even though she didn't have insurance at the time and diagnosed her with ERMS.

Taylor is covered by the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, but that only pays for the medical end of the visits, not the gas, hotel stays or food associated with each journey. The family is desperate for financial aid and is asking the public to donate to their cause.

There are two bank accounts set up to accept donations made to the Taylor Rose Cancer Fund: at 1st Bank Yuma and at Sun Bank located inside of Walmart.

Those who wish to donate can go to any of those bank branches in town and ask to contribute to the fund. For more information about the account at 1st Bank Yuma, call 783-3334. For more information about the account at Sun Bank, call assistant branch manager Mary Ray at 726-3405. For overall information about how to donate, call 276-7890.

According to the American Cancer Society, ERMS is the most common type of rhabdomyosarcoma. It usually affects infants and young children. The cells of ERMS look like the developing muscle cells of a 6- to 8-week-old fetus. The cancer often affects the head and neck, urinary tract and reproductive organs.

"We got there on March 13 and were admitted to the hospital," Sunshine said. "She had surgery and had the tumor removed March 14. Now she's having chemotherapy. We have to go up every Tuesday to Tucson for her chemo treatments, and she has her radiation next month."

According to Sunshine, the doctors were able to save her daughter's vision during the surgery, but there is a risk the radiation treatment could cause permanent damage, like cataracts or blindness in the eye.

"They did a wonderful job. She has both her eyes and they were able to save the eyesight for now in that eye. She still has movement even though the tumor was wrapped around the optic nerve muscle. They were able to save it so she could still have movement in her eye."

Sunshine said her daughter is doing pretty well, all things considered.

For a 3-year-old, said her mother, she's got more courage than a lot of adults. "For the rest of us, it has been a little mixture of everybody being completely and utterly scared and dumbfounded because she has never really been sick except for the common cold. I honestly still don't know how to explain how I feel."