Chrissy Turner, who is currently battling a rare form of breast cancer, became the youngest person to have ever been diagnosed with secretory breast carcinoma when she was just eight years old.
Still just eight years old, the young cancer patient is already scheduled to undergo a mastectomy, which is scheduled to take place in December.
One in a million are diagnosed with the rare form of breast cancer afflicting young Turner, secretory carcinoma, according to research reported in the journal Pediatric Surgery International.
The young Utah resident, who was first diagnosed on November 9, is afflicted with what her physician, Dr. Brian Bucher, says is “very treatable,” the girl’s mother told ABC News. Subsequently, her upcoming mastectomy should be able to prevent the cancer’s return.
Chrissy, who has reportedly been staying busy with her sister Brianna, told ABC News that she “kind of scared” to find out what the bump on her chest was after she became aware of its existence.
I was kind of scared to kind of figure out what it was
Dr. Bucher of Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City was quoted by ABC News as having said that the “simple mastectomy” Chrissy is scheduled to undergo will “remove all the remaining breast tissue to prevent this cancer from coming back.”
Her mother, Annette Turner, told ABC News that her daughter Chrissy told her on a Sunday afternoon that she had “been scared” and that she had a lump that she had known about for a while.
Both of Chrissy’s parents have had their own bouts with cancer, as her father Troy is currently undergoing regular check-ups in order to monitor his non-Hodgkins lymphoma and her mother is a cervical cancer survivor.
A friend of the family launched a fundraising campaign on crowdfunding website GoFundMe with the goal of raising $100,000 to help the family, who declared bankruptcy back in 2013 as a result of medical costs.
The fundraising campaign, which was created by Melissa Papaj on November 17, has managed to raise over $18,000 from more than 360 contributors since its creation.
