[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to "Untold-- The Stories of Cooked Children's," where we uncover the extraordinary lives shaped within the walls of Cooked Children's. Today's episode features a story that you can't afford to miss. Dr. Chelsea Greer was diagnosed with cancer as a child, one of 15,000 kids in the US each year to face that challenging diagnosis. With her parents by her side, they navigated the most difficult days together. But their journey didn't just end in survival. It became so much more. Dr. Greer returned to the very organization that saved her life, this time as an oncologist, helping children who now face the same health challenges she once did. Join us for an inspiring episode with Dr. Greer and her mother, Lindy, as they tell us their story. One of resilience, hope, and the powerful circle of care at Cooked Children's. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Dr. Chelsea Greer. I am one of the pediatric oncologists at Cooked Children's. I specifically have taken over the neuroblastoma program recently, but I still do see all kinds of pediatric oncology diagnoses. I was actually born in a very small town in West Texas. My parents had me at a pretty young age, and my great-great-grandmother had worked for a family practice stock in Alpine, Texas, for a lot of years. And he was willing to deliver me for cash so that we could afford it, make it more affordable for my family. So I was actually born in Alpine, Texas, which most people who are not from West Texas may not even know where that is, all the way out in Big Bend. And then I spent the early years of my childhood in Monohans, which is also a very other small town in West Texas. My family ended up moving to Odessa when I was a late middle school, or sorry, late elementary school, early middle school. And so I ended up doing high school and finishing out my childhood years in Odessa. I had a pretty unremarkable childhood, honestly. My grandparents were-- my family was super big and loud. I felt very fortunate that all of my grandparents lived within a two-mile radius of us in this very small town. So I spent most of my time at their houses growing up. And then when teleminary school, like every other kid, participated in all kinds of sports, soccer, track, basketball was a major when I got a little older. So all the things-- I was an only child until I was 12, because my parents were so young when they had me. There's a pretty good gap between me and my little sister. And so I would argue that everyone says I was a little spoiled, but I think I turned out OK, so I'll leave that up to them. But yeah, I know really normal childhood, really great childhood. So 12 years old, seventh grade. In Odessa, that's middle school. So seventh, eighth, and ninth grader all together. So New Campus, exciting, went through my seventh grade year, participated in all the sports, and was doing soccer outside of school. So I would get up in the morning super early for cross-country, go to school all day, it was in all advanced academic classes, and then would usually go to soccer practice till six or seven at night, and then start over. So super busy. So whenever I started feeling really tired, probably about March of that year, my seventh grade year, I mean, we didn't really think anything of it. It was March. We were coming to the end of the year. We had started prepping for finals. It was my first year for finals. I was still doing all the sports. So we just thought I was tired. Few weeks went by, and my coach from school called my mom and said, hey, Chelsea is taking naps in the locker room instead of eating her lunch. My mom was like, OK, well, we thought she was tired, but that seems extreme. Most days I would come home from school and immediately go to sleep. I'd kind of stopped eating dinners, started running some low-grade fevers here and there, and so that's kind of whenever we really started going to the doctor, trying to figure out an answer. And so a few weeks went by. We had been to not my pediatrician, but a general primary care doctor there and Odessa that we knew well, family friends. At first, diagnosed with the flu because I was so fatigued. And then they thought, oh, well, you're a teenager, so it's got to be mono. So diagnosed with mono. And then just give it some time, finish out the school year, get some rest, start summer, everything will be fine. And so we did that. Summer started. I had lost probably 20 pounds, which I was a very small 12-year-old to begin with. So it was very striking when we looked back at pictures. But because it had happened over some time, it wasn't as obvious when it was going on. We went to the beach, which was one of my favorite places. And I didn't leave the house because I was too tired. So when we got back from vacation, my mom said enough is enough. There's clearly something wrong. We saw my pediatrician that Monday. He did blood work, got a CT scan, called us at 7 PM at night, which is never good, and said, you need to go to cook children's tomorrow. That's where that journey began. He had been in contact with their doctors there, and they were going to see me and do a biopsy. And of course, still said, but it could still be mono. Sometimes you see swollen lymph nodes with mono. So I think you know, you break the nose easy, right? I find myself doing that as well. Until you know for sure, you give a lot of hope. And so we got in the car and drove four and a half hours the next day and saw the doctors at Cook Children's. They admitted me, did a biopsy. During the biopsy, looked at the tissue under the microscope, saw it was consistent with something called Hodgkin's lymphoma, and so actually placed a port during that same surgery. So that we could start therapy. I woke up just really wanting to go home. It was on, I think it was on like a Thursday. And they had decided that they weren't going to start therapy until Monday. And so we actually went ahead and they discharged me. And my parents wanted to stay close to the hospital, but I remember begging them, like, let's just go home. Let's go home. And so my dad did load up after the biopsy and the port placement had gotten pushed later and later in the day. And so I think it was like 8 p.m. We loaded up and actually drove back to Odessa for the weekend and then came back that Monday for treatment consent and my first cycle of chemo. It was a little bit of a different time. I didn't have a cell phone. I didn't have access to a computer on my own. So there's so many kids these days, honestly, that come in and are already asking me, do I have leukemia? Do I have cancer before I've even had a chance to diagnose them as the physician? My brain really never went there. I didn't Google my symptoms. I knew I was super tired. I knew I felt terrible. It seemed like something was wrong. But also, the mono made sense. They kept saying, you can be super fatigued for a very long time. And so I think I just kept thinking like those smaller things made sense and I would just start feeling better. So I don't really remember being scared when I was sick. And I don't really remember being scared at the initial diagnosis. I think it was just one of those things where they told us and my mom and dad cried. But I just thought, OK, well, what are we going to do about it? So I don't remember being scared at first anyways. You know something was very wrong by that point. You know your kid has cancer. I knew I had cancer. We just needed the final final and we needed the treatment plan. And I think the unknown is, can be almost scarier than once you actually sit down and go through all these drugs that have horrible side effects. Look at what it's going to look like for the next six months of your previously healthy teenager's life. I think it was a scary weekend, but also a chance for us to take a little bit of a breath. In some ways, a lot of my family members came over. We knew we were going to be traveling a lot back and forth for treatment. And so it was nice to see everyone. And in some ways also, we knew something was really wrong, especially when we got back from vacation. And so to kind of have an answer and to know, yeah, something is really wrong, we're going to have a plan for it, even though we didn't have the plan in place yet, I think was also probably a relief, probably more to my parents than me. I think I thought the whole time, like, oh, the doctor's saying it's this, it's going to get better on its own. I think my mom knew probably for at least a few weeks before that something was probably very wrong. And that she needed an answer more than what she had been told previously and needed a plan and something to try. So in some ways, not what you want to hear, but at least once you get that diagnosis, you can actually start doing something about it instead of just for her the previous few weeks, watching me sleep, run fevers lose weight, not having an answer was probably also very difficult. I had moments where I was for sure scared where I thought, like, you know, maybe I'm not going to go to high school or maybe I'm not going to drive a car. But kids are really perceptive and I really knew that those thoughts could not be portrayed outwardly because my parents could not handle it if they knew I was thinking those things. And so for me, it was, okay, the doctors seem really confident. My parents seem scared, but not too scared. So we're going to have a plan and we're going to figure out how we all fight this together. And I did have some hard days where we can talk about that a little bit more, but during treatment where I thought, you know, okay, what if this isn't working or why am I so sick? And those days, those thoughts definitely can creep in more than others. But I would say the vast majority of the time, although I did think about death and, you know, what would happen if things weren't working, that wasn't the predominant thought in my brain. So both my parents worked full time. We had lived in Odessa, which again, is four and a half hours away from the medical center. And my little sister was 14 months old. So my dad had to keep working, of course, 'cause you can't have both parents not working whenever you're traveling back and forth for medical care. My mom, thankfully, worked for a fantastic employer who basically, you know, the minute they found out, said, "Take all the time you need." But yeah, I mean, even today, when I sit across from families, I don't know how we expect anyone to just survive it. Everyone does. There's lots of hope on the other side, but when you're hearing that first kind of diagnosis and it's just like your entire world is gonna change for the whole family. And it's just so shocking. Thankfully, we have lots of support. Like I said, my mom's employer was fantastic. My grandparents were close by. My mom's best friend, who's really more like her sister, lived down the street from us, like four houses down, and she kept my little sister all the time. So it was my mom and I traveling back and forth. My little sister and my dad stayed in Odessa. Again, probably harder for sometimes I think about it. I feel like y'all shouldn't interview my mom. Probably harder for them than I ever imagined, you know? They were so good at protecting me and just making it seem like this is what we gotta do. It's not a problem, we're fine, we can do it. But I know it was really hard for them. So I had stage three B hot chance lymphoma. So the way that lymphoma staged is depends on the spread. So highest stage is stage four. The only difference between my diagnosis and a stage four is that it had not spread into the bone marrow for me, but it was throughout my entire body other than my bone marrow. And then the B is just because I was having all the night sweats and weight loss and those kinds of things. And so my treatment protocol up front was planned for five cycles of really intensive chemo and also radiation initially was part of my treatment plan. But they told me they would do the three cycles of chemo and then they would do a scan. And if I was responding appropriately or if then they would decide the radiation after that, but that I would get some type of radiation was the initial plan. And so Hodgkin's lymphoma, even when I was diagnosed, does have very good survival rates, which is great. But the treatment is kind of like the kitchen sink. You do get an insane amount of chemos. Each chemo block is five days of infusions. My first day of infusions, you get all six medicines, essentially. And so you're just in the infusion center all day long. And then you continue to get IV infusions the rest of the week. And so in five cycles, each cycle has about a three week break in between because you are letting the body recover. And so that was my plan, going forward. And so like I said, we started that Monday. They did a conference with my parents. I set in, I think because of my age. That's one of the only things that I don't remember as much about is that initial conference, because it was a lot of talking and consenting to medicines. They talked about all the side effects, long term and short term, what the treatment's going to look like. And then we started. We did our first week of chemo that week. And then we tried to travel back and forth on my off weeks, back out to West Texas. But sometimes that was difficult, depending on some of the side effects that I had from the chemotherapy. After the first cycle of chemo, I actually felt better. I think the disease responded really quickly. My fever's had gone away. I was on a steroid as part of my treatment. Steroids are actually used a lot for both leukemia and lymphoma. They treat really well. So steroid was actually part of my treatment course. So I was actually eating more than I had been eating in months. And so initially I felt better after the rest of the cycle is not necessarily because my blood counts for low and I was tired from the chemo and stuff. But initially I actually felt a little better. And then they rescanned after three cycles. And I remember this. I remember we were in the car outside of a friend's house. And after I'd come back up here for my scans and we had already gone home, waiting for results. And the doctor called my mom and said, there's absolutely not a single lymphoma spot left. And even though her treatment protocol would call for us to radiate that chest mass that she initially had, we don't think we're going to do radiation because there's nothing left. And we think the risks would be outweigh the benefits. I think that's the first time that-- well, it's the first time actually I remember crying through everything. I didn't cry when I was diagnosed. I didn't cry when we started treatment. But I did cry that day. And I think that was the first time where I let myself think, it's all going to be OK. And so I think that it was just the first time that I felt all of those things. How scared I actually was that maybe I wasn't going to respond. How scared I was, maybe, that this is life-threatening. How much it had changed our lives. And so hearing that gratitude just allowed me to actually feel all of those emotions. I have wanted to be a pediatrician since I could say the word. My pediatrician, who I referenced earlier, was like Santa Claus. He was such a jovial, happy, amazing human being. And I just remember going to his office, you know, and I don't know, it was great, even though it was a doctor's office. And he just gave so much light into people's lives. And I just thought it was really cool what Dr. Danny did. So I wanted to do that. And then after my diagnosis is whenever I really thought, OK, well, I think I could have a lot to offer in this way. And so instead of just a pediatrician, I think I really want to say I want to be a pediatric hematologist, oncologist. And that's kind of how I made that decision. And it's because of the interactions I had with the medical staff, with the team, with my doctor, that it's really so inspiring. And I wanted that relationship with people, with families. I think general pediatricians are such special people where they get to see a kid from when they're in until they're 18 and celebrate so many different milestones with them. Hopefully healthy milestones. But I just really thought that after my experience kind of being with families when they're in a really dark moment and then seeing them out through it on the other side was really what I was called to do. All of us in any kind of critical care when we're dealing with kids and families and these emotions are running high, people are sick, are really good at compartmentalizing, which is why, even though I know my story, I lived my story. When people ask me to share it, I'm always very happy to do so. But it still surprises me that I almost always tear up or cry altogether. Because I think that I don't think about it on a day-to-day basis. I think it does influence how I practice and what I do. But it's like a subconscious influence instead of a conscious thought at all times. And so I think it influences how I practice, hopefully, in a very positive way. I think that that empathy that goes much deeper is something that is just inherent. I have it. I experienced it. Every pediatricmatologist oncologist makes an amazing connection with families. But I think that with my experience, I can kind of make that even deeper connection with families and it really does influence how I practice. I'm just always thinking about how truly hard it is for these families. And so I try really hard to make it as easy as possible. So whenever I was diagnosed, I did wonder if I would be-- if I would grow up, if I would graduate and do all the things that I had planned on doing before that diagnosis. You know, when you're 12, you're invincible. And a lot of times not thinking about every step of the future, but you have an idea of what you're going to be when you grow up and what you want to do and ideas. And so after my treatment finished, that's like a whole nother trauma, right? You're in this world of fight, fight or flight, and you're fighting. And then you finish. And you think initially that you're just-- finishing is like all you're trying to get to. And you finish. And you think initially that it's just going to be this great feeling. And it's not, necessarily. You then are not going to these doctors appointments and getting regular checkups. You kind of have to integrate back into school with 12-year-olds who, for no fault of their own, still only worry about what you should be worrying about as a 12-year-old and not all the things that I have now grown and worried about. And so integrating back into middle school was not easy. Thankfully, I had an amazing friend, have an amazing friend still. That's all you need is one person. But kids are mean. So that was a whole not easy. And so initially, was just kind of shocked by that transition, which I do prep my families for. I think you are in this fight of your life, and then it ends. And you think everything's going to be back to normal. And it's kind of shocking when it's not. So still coming for checkups regularly. The first few years off therapy, you're monitored a lot closer. You get a lot of scans. You see the doctors. You get lab work. And so I still got to see Dr. Bowman all the time. He was one of several physicians who treated me whenever I was getting treatment. Because there's obviously a lot of us. And we cover inpatient and those kinds of things differently. So I met many physicians. But once I was off therapy, he was the one who certainly saw me out patient all the time. And certainly is an amazing human, not just a physician. And I think it was really inspirational, my relationship, and my family's relationship with him. Part of the reason why I wanted to go into this was because the relationship continues after the diagnosis. And he was just such an inspiration to me that I wanted to be able to be that for other people. So he let me come hang out with the West Texas clinics after high school graduation. I went to UT for undergrad in Austin. And so I did a couple of internships with him throughout undergrad in the clinics in West Texas. I mean, it's just shadowing, but it was still great. And then my road to becoming a doctor was definitely not straight. UT is a very rigorous, big school. They don't give a lot of hand-holding, not that I needed it. But I was so determined to graduate in three years, because I already knew I wanted to be a doctor. So why would I delay things? I actually graduated high school a year early, because I wanted to not be in high school anymore. And I wanted to be a doctor. So I was like, why are we delaying things here? So I graduated high school a year early, started UT before I was even 18, was determined to graduate UT in three years. And my GPA was far from bad, but for it to be a physician. I remember my counselor at one point, you know, after one semester freshman year, I got 1B. I was taking like 17 hours, got 1B. She looked across the table for me and she was like, well, you need, you're not going to med school, so you need like a different plan. And I just remember thinking, I'm 18, I had 1B, and you're already telling me I'm not going to med school. And that's also not an option for me, because if you knew my story, you would know that I'm going to med school. So unfortunately, she wasn't wrong. I did the first time I applied to med school, did not even get an interview, which was like soul crushing. And that's another place where Dr. Mona really came in. He was really awesome to talk to about all that. He was so encouraging. And I knew that I still didn't have a plan B because I didn't want a plan B. I just needed to figure out how to still get to plan A. And so I actually went to grad school up north in Scranton, Pennsylvania, of all places. It was a great year, a great experience. I think it made me even more mature and ready for med school. And then I came back down and went to med school in Fort Worth. Where Dr. Bowman was actually a chair of pediatrics at the time, he hooded me at my med school graduation. He and his wife came to my wedding. So huge inspiration, huge part of my story. So graduated in 2016. My med school did do some student rotations at cook, which was great. So I actually did do some rotations there as a medical student. Went to residency in Austin. And then fellowship in Dallas at UT Southwestern. I actually stayed on as an attending at UT Southwestern and really thought I would be there for, I don't know, probably five years at least, just kind of getting my feet wet, growing as a young physician. And then, but one of my friends who works at Cook's had reached out and said, hey, one of our docs is actually gonna be taking a different position. I know you weren't really planning on moving over yet, but would you be interested? And I 1000% said yes. It was a hard decision just because you know, whenever you have something in your mind, oh, I'm gonna be here for five years and then I'm gonna move there. We're all a little type A, even though my, you know, trajectory has changed a few times, still a type A person. And so it wasn't a hard decision. I knew in my heart that's where I wanted to be and where I was supposed to be and that had been the plan all along, but because of the timing didn't initially line up with what I had thought it was kind of like, ah, you know, I was talking to my husband and I was like, should I go to this interview? 'Cause you know if I go to this interview, we're moving. Like, you know, I'm gonna love it. You know where this is where we're supposed to be. And he was like, well, how are you even asking me this question? You know you're going to that interview and you know we're moving jobs. And I was like, yeah, I know. But it took me a few weeks to really do what I already knew we were gonna do. So yes, so when to the interview loved it and the rest is kind of history. I guess I started, I did have, I gave a pretty long notice, of course so, but then started last spring. So I've been there a little over a year now. When you graduate med school and you have to match to residency, there's no guarantee you're gonna get a residency actually. You can graduate med school and then not even get a residency, which means you can't practice in the United States. And so the day I matched residency, same feelings. I was like, okay, one step closer. And then I was most anxious before fellowship match. Same thing, there's no guarantee you're gonna get a fellowship match. And if you don't, if I didn't do fellowship, I again couldn't do this. And so the day I matched to fellowship, I think was probably in all of this journey. One of the best days 'cause I knew then, okay, well, here we are, we're finally, finally gonna be doing this. So it's truly amazing what you remember, what you choose to pick out. And every time I walk into that building, I'm like, kind of wanna vomit actually. To be quite honest, it smells exactly the same, but it's not a good smell, which probably doesn't smell that way to anyone else, but yeah, lots of emotions. You know, like I said, really good compartmentalizing when I'm at work, but still definitely have those days. And I used this word earlier in the interview, but honestly, I think the most overwhelming emotion really is just gratitude. Everything I went through, and survived, impacts how I am with how I practice medicine, how I am with families. There's no way it couldn't. I will say that everyone's experience is unique. So I actually never share my story with a family unless they bring it up first. I think you have to be very cautious when you feel like you've been through something. Because your feelings and what your emotions were, even though yes, you have a commonality, are still not necessarily what they're feeling and what their emotions are. And their outcome may not be the same that mine was. And so I never mind sharing my story, but if I don't, unless a family asks me about it, I never am the first to share that. I instead hope that my empathy, the way that I practice, the way I interact with them, that's where I let my journey impact what I do, but it's not necessarily through actually having that conversation with the family. Because I do think there are people in medicine, maybe not quite as unique as my journey, but there are plenty of people who went into medicine because they had a similar experience when they were children. And I just think everyone's journey and experience is so unique that you have to be a little bit cautious about just assuming that because you felt this way, that family is feeling the same way. They may not have the support that you had, there's just so many factors that go into this experience. So I recently have had the opportunity to take over the NERMA STEMA program, which is really awesome. I think at most big centers, like Cook Children's, a young physician like me would not be given the opportunity to kind of be an actual program director for a program like NERMA STEMA. And so I think it, again, just another amazing part of the journey that that wasn't what I planned. I'm happy taking care of all kinds of children with cancer, any diagnoses, but the opportunity arose and I jumped at it. And so the program is a team of people who are only taking care of patients with NERMA STEMA. I still see other oncology diagnoses and I'm very happy to do so 'cause I am still part of the general oncology team as well, but am now in charge of the NERMA STEMA team. NERMA STEMA is one of the diseases that we treat that unfortunately not our most common disease that we take care of, but unfortunately still has a poor prognosis and has come a lot less far than some of our other cancers. You know, childhood cancer in general, thankfully, has greater than 80% cure rates just across the board, but there are certain diseases that certainly still have a long way to go and NERMA STEMA, especially high risk NERMA STEMA is one of those diseases. And so a lot of our patients go on clinical trials, a lot of our patients, especially, that are relapsed, so their disease went away and then came back go on clinical trials just to try and get some kind of better outcome, some better medicine, there has to be a better way. Their treatment is so intense. I mean, do you wanna talk about a train running over you when I sit and talk to these families for the first time? Sometimes I can't even believe the things that are coming out of my mouth, honestly, when I'm talking to them about what the next 18 months of their life is gonna look like, it's just mind-blowing. And so I think that my experience, again, though, puts me in such a place to, I really love taking care of these families. I love taking care of all my patients, but I think that they have some unique difficulties and unique perspectives throughout their treatment. And so I've really enjoyed it. We are growing our team in general, you know, I think my goal is to have a lot of these patients to have access to any clinical trial that could be available in the whole nation, but just here close to home. And so that's what I'm trying to do. And right, the neuroblastoma team was already there. I just had the opportunity to step into being the director, but I think it's a great springboard for a bigger, solid tumor team in general. And I'm really hoping to expand our kind of some of these phase one, phase two clinical trials so that our patients don't have to travel as far. Cook also has a really unique environment. A lot of these phase one, phase two clinical trials are only available at medical centers that are overwhelmingly huge. I think, of course, prospective, right? But because I came from a small town in West Texas, I feel like Cook just feels so much more individualized, small, homey, I don't know the right word. But I think the fact that we're able to offer some of these cutting-edge clinical therapies to patients in an environment that feels a lot more personalized and manageable for some of these families is really, that's really my main goal. I mean, that's really what I'm trying to do so that they can have the best care available. You know, there were, like I said, a lot of hard days, but I don't remember the entire experience in a negative light necessarily. There were certainly hard days. Do I wish that maybe my family hadn't had to experience that experience or I didn't have to get chemo and go through these things? I mean, sure, would have been better. But I don't know, maybe it wouldn't have. It has shaped so much of my life. And where I'm at today, I would not-- could not even imagine doing anything different or being in a different place than I'm in today. So I don't view the experience as a negative experience. And I do think that it does put a lot of things in perspective about just life in general. Life is hard sometimes. And I think whenever you have that resilience that you've built off of difficult experiences, you kind of realize that even though this time might be hard, everything is brief. This too shall pass. And on the other side, who knows? Maybe it's better. I have Lindy Greer and I'm Chelsea's mom. Chelsea was an old soul. This is really the best way I can describe her. She was always very polite and focused, very good student, a good athlete. And it's really never-- it's just hard to say she never really had any of that rebellious stage that teenagers did. Because quite honestly, all that was, I think, interrupted by her cancer diagnosis. Your perspective changes, I think, when you get cancer when you're 13. So she had some different experiences and different priorities. But even leading up to that, she was a great student, junior honor society athlete, kind of a teacher's pet. So she was 13. It was toward the end of the school year. And it's funny, I was looking up some pictures this morning. And in April of that year, she was running track, playing soccer, very active, kiddo. And then about a month later, I would say starting in May, she was very tired. That was really the initial symptom, was just her coming home. And even right after school, wanting to take a nap on the couch, which never happened. So the fatigue. And I really passed it all off for several weeks, just thinking, oh, it's the end of the year. She's been super busy. She's been staying up late. Homework, studying for finals. Just some of those things that you think a teenager is going through at that time. And so I was up at the school one afternoon. And one of her coaches actually asked me how Chelsea was feeling. And I said, well, she's fine. Why? He said, well, she's been coming in here after lunch and taking a nap in my office. And that's when I really knew this is not just normal fatigue. This is not. And so she was 13. She had decided she was too big to go to her pediatrician anymore. So we had just been using a family physician. And so I took her to the doctor for the first time, probably, I'd say mid-May. And one of her friends in school had mono. And so then we started thinking, oh, well, this is mono. This is infectious. And she started running just a low-grade fever at night. So then to me, not knowing all the symptoms of the lymphoma made me think, oh, this is definitely infectious. She's got mono, something like that. And so we had her back and forth to the doctor for a few weeks and really weren't finding anything. And school led out. And my best friend and I were talking about it. They had invited her to go to the beach with them. We were like, yeah, that'll be great. She'll go to the beach. She'll get some rest. She'll be fine. And when they got back from their beach trip, my best friend came down and she said, look. She said, there's something more going on here. I don't think Chelsea even made it down to the beach one day. She stayed at the house. She slept. She was losing weight, which on her skinny little frame was becoming more and more noticeable. So that was really the beginning of it. And I had just happened at the time. I did some contract work at the hospital there in Odessa and ran into her pediatrician. And he stopped. We visited. He said, how are the girls? Because he knew my younger daughter as well. And so I just started telling him some of the things that were going on. And he said, why don't you send me what y'all have done? Send me some of the reports. And bring her in and let's just kind of start from scratch because you're right. I think this is something that needs to be further investigated. And so we did. We kind of started from scratch with him. And we were at my best friend's house visiting and swimming one evening. And he calls at 7 o'clock at night. And that's never a good thing when the doctor calls you on your cell phone at 7 o'clock at night. And he says, this is what we're thinking. I've already called cooks. He said, if you can't make it, I understand. This is the last minute. He said, but I'm leaving town. And I'd really like to get you set up with someone to do a more comprehensive evaluation. And we feel like cooks is really the best place for her to go. And so the next morning we left and came to Fort Worth from Odessa where we lived. And it was just kind of a whirlwind from there. She went in for a biopsy, came out with a port, and a diagnosis of stage three lymphoma. So the first thing, in all honesty, was just kind of kicking ourselves that why did we not do something more quickly? You don't ever expect that that will be the diagnosis in a normal, healthy, active child. And thinking, well, if we hadn't played this off and tried to put every other logical diagnosis on this, we could have-- we would have known much more quickly. If this doesn't go well, is that time-lapse going to be something pivotal in her treatment and her outcome? But then you just kind of strap in and get ready. So at that point, then it was, I want her to be confident that she can get better. And so I've got to portray that I'm confident that she's going to get better. So it's not that there weren't hard moments, but it was always kind of putting up that strong front that would try to instill confidence in her that, hey, this is going to be OK. But then there's those moments that run through your mind, weird things, as a mom. Like, is she going to live long enough to ever get her driver's license? Is she going to go to a prom? Is she going to-- just some of those little weird things that really aren't that important in the grand scheme of things, but the milestones that you start to kind of wonder, well, will we see these things? Will we-- will she get to experience these things? And me get to experience watching her go through this. The time I was most scared was she was admitted to the hospital right after her very first round of chemo. And she was weak going into that first round, obviously, with the stage of her disease. And after just the really massive doses of chemo, all of the cellular breakdown, and I think they call it the tumor lysis, just everything that she was experiencing. And she started swelling. And there was a point at which you could really not even see her eyes, her little face, her little body, and this skinny little frame that had lost so much weight already, and she was swelling, and they were telling us that, well, maybe the chemotherapy had affected her kidney function. Maybe there's another tumor that they've missed that is affecting the kidney function. They were giving her lysis, and nothing was working. She was having no output from her system. And that was really the moment I think I was the most scared, because we're doing all of these things to try to make her better, and she just got so much worse right there initially. And just being in the hospital with her, and I was here with her alone. All our family was back in West Texas, because I happened to have a two-year-old at the time also, which somebody had to take care of. And so just being there in the hospital, and I can just remember sitting beside her bed and just kind of laying my hand on her lower back, and just really, I mean, just really prayer. I mean, I think is what got me through a lot of that time. So from the time that we received Chelsea's diagnosis, I knew that things were going to be very different for her, and really for all of us as a family. But at the same time, my husband and I were really committed to also trying to keep things very much the same, trying to create an environment in which she was able to get the care that she needed, but also still try to live those things that a teenage girl wanted to live. And that included sometimes discipline. In my mind, one of the things that I also thought was, and every parent is going to deal with this differently. Every parent will. But I really saw so many parents who struggled with the diagnosis and struggled with their child having to go through this, and so they wanted to make everything OK. And so therefore everything was catered to that child. And the boundary structures and the expectations and everything were changed or were really done away with. And I told my husband one time, I said, you know, I want so badly for my daughter to survive this. But I wanted her to survive it as a functional person, and not someone who is emotionally broken, or who is unable to function in society. And so I know there were times when it was really hard not to give in and do exactly what she wanted, or to give in to her pain, or her sickness, or things like that. But at the same time, if you have the expectation that they're going to get better, if that's your goal, whether that turns out that way or not. But that is your goal when you start this. Otherwise, you wouldn't put them through all of this, quite frankly, because it was not always very pretty. But if you have that goal that they're going to get better, you have to think beyond that to say, OK, to what end? And yes, be their friend, be their supporter, but don't forget to be their parent. Don't forget to be the parent that they need, and who's going to try to help them get through this so that they are able to live their best life when they do recover. I'm so incredibly proud, really, just beyond words. And I do appreciate the fact that, not only do I think she's an incredible physician, but she does have that additional capacity to really empathize with those patients, because she's lived it. She may be able to provide hope to show a patient, hey, I've been through this, your life is not over, and you can still achieve great things. So I just think that such a struggle for her to live through. But then to be able to use that struggle in a way that is going to truly benefit so many people. I mean, it's exactly what she wanted to do. It's exactly what she knew she was capable of doing. And I'm just so proud that she proved everybody right. You know, my parents are amazing. I do not know how they did what they did. I tell my mom all the time, actually, she should come maybe do some parenting conferences or classes or something. They managed to take that experience, know that we were going to get through it, do all the hard things they did, which I'm sure I don't even know a fraction of, and still make sure that I grew up to be who I am. Even on the hard days, they were still put in my parents. Just because I was going through cancer treatment, I was still not allowed to talk back to my mom. It was the whole thing. It was just like, OK, yeah, this extra layer of suckiness in our lives right now. This is something that we're going to get through. So you are still my teenage child who-- I mean, you're allowed to not feel great, but like, you still have to do all the things and you. And that's because we're going to get through this. You're going to survive. And then we're not just going to survive, we're going to thrive. You know, I've been told multiple times by multiple mentors. You can't continue to be at this kind of level of care and not get burned out. And I disagree. The care that I give to my patients is not what contributes to my burnout. That's actually what contributes to my joy and my job. Yeah, I watch for test results to come back and call families at 9 p.m. at night, but that's OK. That's what I do. And I can't imagine if I was that parent waiting for a test result, making them wait till the morning if I know it's back that night. So I think that's what I'm most proud of is how I care for my patients and the relationships that I have with them. You know, kids these days are going through so much just on a general level than more than we all had to go through. I mean, thank goodness I didn't have a cell phone with social media when I was 12 years old. Like, that's terrifying. And so I think it has made their experience even harder because I knew I was missing out on things at school and life experiences and all. I knew I was missing those things, but it's very different. On the one hand, it allows them to continue the connection. You know, they're constantly talking to their friends when they're in the hospital, on the phones. Sometimes I think that's great, but on the other hand, I think it actually also makes them realize even more what they're missing out on and makes them feel even more disconnected sometimes. And then it also, again, allows for so much feedback to them, which can be not always positive, can be negative. And so I think that patients, I think you just have to kind of know that they're gonna have really negative interactions with people and it's nothing about you, it's about them. And if you can just find that one person, someone, who can be your cheerleader, who can, you know, stick up for you, who makes you always feel special. Then hopefully that will be enough for you to kind of not hear all the other noise because it can be very difficult. And then as far as my parents go, parents in general, I actually do kind of give them the spiel from the beginning. That's easier for me, honestly, to maybe give some advice on, I tell families, I let them, I let it all sink in. And then about a week into it, I tell them, "Hey, look, this is a speed bump in your road." Okay, your goal is for this child to grow up, to be happy, healthy, productive member of society. And so, you know, all the same rules that applied before this diagnosis in your family, the way your family functioned, even though there's a lot of changes, those should still be your baseline, at least. And whatever we can do to support and help you maintain that baseline is our goal. - That's it for today's episode of "Untold, the Stories of Cooked Children's." We hope you've been inspired by the incredible journey of Dr. Chelsea Greer and her mother, Lindy, a story of unimaginable challenges, triumph, and unwavering dedication. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave us a review, and share this story with others who need a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there's always a path to healing. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time for more extraordinary stories from the heart of Cooked Children's. (dramatic music) [MUSIC PLAYING] You
