Kassy's Story

In the summer of 2018, Kassidy Gard started having seizures. On her 12th birthday in September, Kass had an appointment to figure out what was going on. This appointment revealed a large brain tumor. 

Just a few weeks later, Kass was checked into Children’s Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, for surgery to remove the golfball-sized tumor. At this point, it was not known if the tumor was cancerous. When Kass and her family returned to Children's hospital after the surgery, they were told that the tumor was, in fact, cancerous. She has high grade astroblastoma. She began chemo and radiation on Friday, October 26, 2018.  

Kassy is a Heartland Cancer Foundation grant recipient. She is now 13 years old and continues her battle with this rare form of brain cancer. She loves to dance and lip-sing to music, draw, paint, play volleyball and tell jokes. She is planning for college and is wanting to be a special needs teacher.

Kassy’s mom, Sara, reflects back on when her daughter was in the middle of treatments:
“We couldn’t have survived this without the Heartland Cancer Foundation. It’s overwhelming going through the treatment process. To maintain any sort of normalcy with the rest of the family is nearly impossible. These grants allowed us to eliminate the financial stress that accompanies a cancer diagnosis. It allowed us to not be so overwhelmed with all that was going on and to focus on healing."