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Photo by Kevin Anderson

On Monday during her 8-hour chemotherapy treatment at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Jillian Sharp passed the time with making a welcome sign with the help of her father Randy Sharp.

Photo by Kevin Anderson

Jillian Sharp squints her eyes as she looks closely to the numbers counting down on the infusion pump that flows chemotherapy treatment into her body. The 4-year-old has had to endure six months of treatment for cancer that was discovered last October. To honor her, family members and students at Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School, have formed teams to participate in next month’s Shawnee-Lenexa Relay for Life.

Jillian Sharp stared intently at the machine, as if willing its countdown to go faster.

Finally, the digital one changed to a zero.

“It’s beeping!” she cried, and quickly went about trying to remember which of the buttons she should push to make the beeping stop and reset the infusion pump for another hour.

It’s not a huge milestone, but it means Jillian, 4, is one hour closer to the end of her eight-hour chemotherapy treatment at Children’s Mercy Hospital. A nurse checks the pump, and Jillian soon moves on to play with a nearby toy kitchen set; five more hours to go.

Monday was the first day of Jillian’s five-day chemotherapy treatment, the fourth such treatment she’s had since she was first diagnosed with cancer in October. After this treatment, plus two more treatments of radiation, her family hopes she officially will be cancer-free.

Though six months of cancer treatments usually has a tiring effect on children, Jillian is a ball of energy in the hematology/oncology outpatient clinic at Children’s Mercy.

“She hasn’t lost her energy or her spunk,” says her mother, Staci Sharp, a second-grade teacher at Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School.

And Jillian’s fearless fight against the disease in her body has inspired almost everyone around her to do their part to find a cure; the Sharp family’s friends and Lenexa neighbors have formed three teams to participate in the Shawnee/Lenexa Relay for Life, which is scheduled for June 27-28 at Swarner Park.

Sudden discovery

It took just three days for Jillian to go from healthy to sick.

Her illness was discovered when she was at Children’s Mercy to see a developmental pediatrician for her speech. Staci Sharp said the doctor decided to listen to Jillian’s abdomen with a stethoscope and found a mass on her right side.

The next day, Jillian saw her regular pediatrician. After an ultrasound and CT scan, doctors discovered a tumor on her right kidney. She was admitted to Children’s Mercy the following day, when the diagnosis finally came: Jillian had nephroblastoma, or Wilms tumor, and the fast-growing cancer had already advanced to Stage 4 and spread to Jillian’s lungs.

“They said that it’s so fast that it could have been just two weeks to a month when this all started — the cells just multiply so fast,” Sharp said.

Jillian soon had surgery to have her right kidney and right adrenal gland removed and began chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Sharp said there were few signs anything was wrong. Jillian’s abdomen had become bigger, but her parents attributed it to a normal, toddler-aged “potbelly.”

“We just said, ‘Oh, she’s had a few too many chicken nuggets,’” Sharp said. “We found out that her blood pressure was high, and that’s also a sign, but you don’t check that regularly with a child unless they’re sick and in the doctor’s office.”

Jillian was given a 74 percent chance to live — good odds, but still a frightening idea when cancer was the furthest thing from Sharp’s mind when she first took Jillian in to see the speech specialist. Sharp said the family tries not to think of Jillian’s illness in terms of prognosis, however.

“We don’t look at numbers, because a doctor can throw out a number at you, but a doctor can’t make that decision,” she said. “We just think of it as God’s decision, and only He knows.”

While undergoing treatment, Jillian somehow has maintained her energy level, though her mother said her appetite comes and goes.

“People tend to laugh because the only thing she really wants to eat is bacon, so we have stocked up on bacon,” Sharp said.

While the radiation has been hard, Sharp said for the most part, Jillian has “sailed through this.”

The hardest part for Jillian was losing her hair. She hasn’t been to preschool since she got sick because her immune system is compromised, and Sharp says when she and husband, Randy, ask Jillian if she’s ready to go back to school, Jillian says she won’t go back until she has her hair.

“So she’s aware,” Sharp said. “Out in public, when we take her out and she gets the looks, you can tell that she’s self-conscious. So we try to keep her covered up; she usually wears a hat.”

School community hit

While the only instance of cancer in Jillian’s family is her great-aunt, who is a breast cancer survivor, the impact of Jillian’s diagnosis was made deeper when Sharp seemed to find other cancer diagnoses all around her.

Three weeks after Jillian’s diagnosis, Linda Tinsley, principal at Bluejacket-Flint, was diagnosed with cancer, and then a few months after that, a first-grader’s mother also was diagnosed.

“So it’s really hit our school community hard,” Sharp said.

The Sharps had never heard of the Relay for Life before Jillian got sick, but soon afterward, a friend mentioned it. Sharp got online and read about the event, in which participants walk a track throughout the night to raise funds for cancer research, and quickly signed up to have a team.

“We just thought what a great way to honor Jillian, as well as get the word out about cancer and cancer survival and raise money so that we can find a cure for cancer,” Sharp said.

But the “Wilms Warriors” team soon surpassed the 15-member limit, so there are now three teams with about 45 total members who have raised a combined total of more than $4,000. About $2,000 of that has come from a fundraiser students organized at Bluejacket-Flint, and Sharp hopes to surpass $5,000 by the relay.

“When we started this, I was thinking, ‘Oh, $1,000 would be great,’” Sharp said. “It’s just amazing how generous people are.”

But with Jillian as a mascot, it’s no wonder the Wilms Warriors are so inspired. She continues to amaze her nurses and her family with her energy, and her most recent CT scan shows there is no evidence of cancer in her body.

Once Jillian finishes the last of her treatments, just before the relay, Sharp expects another CT scan will confirm Jillian is officially in remission. Sharp said Jillian looks forward to the relay, where she will walk the survivor’s lap with her great-aunt and Tinsley.

“From what I hear, it’s something that will impact you and change your life forever,” Sharp said of the relay. “Once you start with it, you never stop.”

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