Angie Finton
Sponsor: Steven Strong

Wyoming
Ariana (Age 11)
Cancer

Eleven-year-old Ariana of Laramie, Wyo., has always been a precocious child with a dynamic personality. A stranger once commented, “It’s hard to imagine she won’t be a movie star.” Not that the glamour of Hollywood would fit the personality of a girl who loves karate, barrel racing and archery, and who regards solving math problems as a special treat.

On New Year’s Day, the limitless possibilities Ariana and her family hoped for unexpectedly came into question. Complaining of lower back pain, Ariana went to The Children’s Hospital for x-rays. They revealed a small amount of hardened tissue, which they hoped was just a minor injury. But the pain soon became excruciating.

After an MRI doctors discovered that the tissue was not an injury but a tumor called Ewing’s Sarcoma, an extremely rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer. Ariana quickly went into surgery, but due to the location of the tumor the only further option was chemotherapy.

Arianna is not a quitter. She pushed through a year of treatment, determined to beat cancer and anything that came with it. And she did. By the time school began in 2007 Ariana’s cancer was a thing of the past.