Taylor Somar - Against All Odds - Chanel 12 News Story (2006)

Taylor Somar - Against All Odds - Chanel 12 News Story (2006):

9-year old Taylor Somar loves soccer. She plays for the Pink Panthers in Mesa. From the sidelines, you can't help but hear her parents yelling their encouragement. Just like it inspires her on the soccer field, their support helped her survive two bouts with cancer.

At age 3, Taylor was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a cancer that originates in the kidney. Doctors had to remove her left kidney.

Today (2006), Taylor, a fourth grader at O'Connor Elementary School, is cancer free, but is still monitored by doctors. She attends the late effects clinic at Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Nurse practitioner Britt Olson is the clinic's co-founder and coordinator. She says, "It's a comprehensive, yearly clinic for people off their therapy at least two years, to follow up after chemotherapy and to monitor long-term effects from their therapy. The long-term follow-up clinic is the only comprehensive late effects clinic in the state of Arizona."

Late effects can range from hearing problems and hair loss, to osteoporosis and thyroid deficiency. A team of specialists examines each cancer survivor, recording height and weight, studying blood samples, and checking nutritional and mental health.

More than 80 patients, up to age 35, have attended the clinic, which opened in December 2003. The data collected so far has been analyzed, published, and applied internationally. The findings were recently presented at the International Society of Pediatric Oncology in Vancouver.

Doctors say Taylor, who wears hearing aids and needs to drink a lot of water, to keep her only kidney functioning well, is doing great. Her mom, Erika, says her family always treated cancer as "just a thing." She says, "You can't let it do anything, you've got to just fight it."

Jill Hanks
12 News Producer
Nov. 14, 2005

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News & Politics

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• 2005