When Pippa Cole was barely one, her doctors discovered that she had a brain tumor. She’d spent the past nine days vomiting until there was blood, which is when her parents took her to the emergency room.
Once the tumor was discovered, the doctors decided they would operate just a few days later. The surgery was followed by a year of chemotherapy, after which, Pippa was declared all clear. She would just need to return for routine scans.
In just the following year though, Pippa’s scans revealed that another tumor had grown into her brain. The tumor was, again, removed by surgery – but another one grew back almost immediately afterward.
A third surgery was scheduled, but it was already too late.
Pippa had just turned four and had seven tumors developing in her brain. Another cluster of tumors was growing in along her spine.
Her doctors advised her parents to put her on an extensive chemotherapy treatment, but even then – Pippa was given only a few weeks left to live.
Her parents, Shell and Scott, were devastated. “After all the surgeries and chemotherapy, it seemed incredibly unfair that we were going to lose her,” Shell admitted. “Every week we had with her from that moment seemed even more precious. We wanted to make Pippa’s last months the happiest of her life.”
They’d never gotten married, so they intentionally moved their wedding date forward several months so Pippa could be – as she’d always wanted – their flower girl. The family went to Disney World and made sure that Pippa met all the face characters she wanted to see.
“Her face was full of smiles the entire time,” Shell recalled of the family’s Disney excursion. “Every day she woke up alive felt like another blessing as we couldn’t waste it by not doing fun things.”
About three months later, Pippa’s condition seemed to be holding. Her doctors and parents breathed a small sigh of relief – but never expected for anything better.
Within the next half year though, Pippa’s scans revealed that all her tumors had, somehow, disappeared. Her doctors are still unsure how this happened.
Some speculate that the incredibly positive results were a delayed response to the chemotherapy treatment from eight months prior, but they’re still uncertain.
As for Pippa’s parents, “nothing could have prepared us for the news that all of Pippa’s cancerous tumors had disappeared,” Shell said. “We are still on cloud nine, it was only a few weeks ago and it still doesn't feel real.”
