Scarlett Bumgarner went to get her wisdom teeth removed shortly before her 16th birthday. When she wouldn’t stop bleeding during the minor surgery, she was airlifted to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, about two hours away from where she lived at the time.
Doctors there told her mother that Scarlett had Leukemia.
“They gave us the diagnosis. (The Doctors said), ‘Hey, guess what? Your daughter has cancer,'” Scarlett’s mother Katie told The Arizona Republic. “It almost felt like it was a blur, like we were in a nightmare.”
Scarlett began chemotherapy treatment as her mother watched her once “fun-loving, outspoken, charismatic” daughter lose her hair and be forced into isolation by her compromised immune system.
“It was a roller coaster of emotions. You had no control over what was going to happen next because we didn’t know. We were just there,” Katie said.
Arizona Cancer Foundation for Children is a lifeline for sick kids, families
Katie, her husband Anthony and their three daughters — Scarlett, 12-year-old Makayla and nine-year-old Cadence — moved to Surprise in June to be closer to family and hospitals that could treat Scarlett’s Leukemia while the 16-year-old battled cancer.