Adeline Neinast, a 9-year-old cancer survivor, transforms her journey of resilience into a celebration of hope at the Children\u2019s Cancer Fund Gala runway in Dallas. <\/p>\n
LONGVIEW, Texas \u2014 For one night each year in Dallas, every step on the runway tells a story of strength. For 9-year-old Adeline Neinast, those steps now represent resilience, courage and survival.<\/p>\n
Adeline will walk in the Children\u2019s Cancer Fund Gala, a fashion show that raises money and awareness for childhood cancer research and care. Each child featured on the runway is currently battling cancer or in treatment, paired with medical teams and supporters who have helped guide their care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have 18 models, and each one is a patient at either the Dallas Children\u2019s Hospital or Plano that are currently fighting cancer,\u201d one organizer said. \u201cSo it’s a pretty neat event. It gets to honor the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Adeline\u2019s life looked very different. There was no runway, only a hospital room and a diagnosis that came suddenly.<\/p>\n
Her mother recalled early warning signs.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe started getting bruises in weird spots\u2026 her gums started bleeding\u2026 and the night before she was diagnosed, she had a little blood spot in her mouth,\u201d her mother said. \u201cAnd I was like, something is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within hours, the 10-year-old was diagnosed with high-risk B-cell leukemia. Her mother said treatment began quickly and aggressively.<\/p>\n
But complications followed just as fast, including sepsis, meningitis and a stroke.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt one point, the doctors told us, \u2018Prepare yourselves. We don\u2019t know how this is gonna go,\u2019\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n
Adeline spent 391 days in and out of treatment, fighting infections and slowly rebuilding her strength.<\/p>\n
Even during the hardest moments, her family said pieces of her childhood still shone through. She is now in remission and gradually returning to the things she loves like art, music and being a kid again.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe loves Legos, she loves to sing, she\u2019s always positive. She doesn’t complain,\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n
At Friday\u2019s gala in downtown Dallas, Adeline will step onto the runway wearing a light blue dress, silver shoes and a tiara, walking alongside the medical team that helped carry her through treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited. Just getting to see her smile and go down the runway in her pretty dress and have fun for the night\u2026 that\u2019s what I\u2019m looking forward to,\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adeline Neinast, a 9-year-old cancer survivor, transforms her journey of resilience into a celebration of hope at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-253938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}