Fearless isn’t just the title of Bailey Elementary first-grader, Allie Ganger’s, favorite Taylor Swift album – it’s also a great word to describe her.
Not only did Ganger fight cancer, she did it all while sharing her spunky personality and bringing a smile to everyone she met.
Now cancer-free, she holds incredible strength that not many other 7-year-olds possess, and continues to bring joy to those around her.
An unthinkable challenge
While recovering from a hernia-removal surgery, then 6-year-old Ganger began running dangerously high fevers. Her worried parents, Ryan and Sara Ganger, contacted their pediatrician who assured them it was most likely a virus, and that she would recover shortly.
Looking at their miserably sick daughter, the couple knew it couldn’t just be a virus, and they noticed that Ganger’s abdomen looked misshapen. They continued to be told it was a virus by physicians, until eventually, the couple was delivered devastating news.
Ganger was diagnosed with Stage 4 Wilms tumor, a rare cancer of the kidneys, in December 2023.
While her survival rate for her disease was a favorable 80 percent, her parents knew this wouldn’t be easy. She soon began chemotherapy and radiation treatments to shrink the tumor and eventually had surgery to remove her kidney.
The day before her surgery, Bailey Elementary staff and the Dublin Coffman High School marching band (outfitted in Ganger’s favorite color: pink), held a parade outside her home. Friends and loved ones carried signs and posters, which now adorn a wall in the family’s house.
“I was super excited for the parade,” Ganger says. “It felt like a dance party.”
Giving and receiving
Ganger’s parents watched her build strong connections with the hospital staff she interacted with often. She called the nurses who cared for her “her princesses,” and her patient advocate “her queen.”
“They loved to dance with me and sing Taylor Swift’s music. They always got me something to color or paint. They made me feel loved,” Ganger says.
Outside of medical staff, there were plenty of other kind folks in the community wanting to support the family. Nellie’s Catwalk for Kids (NC4K), a local organization that provides support to families of children battling cancer, as well as the Glitter Girls Guild, a Dublin-focused organization that serves families dealing with medical hardships, stepped in to assist.
These organizations helped the family put meals on the table and volunteered to help with whatever the family needed, whether that be haircuts or breaking down their Christmas tree.
The family’s neighbor, a Columbus Crew player, gifted them a signed jersey, and the Taylor Swift concert tickets her dad purchased for Ganger to attend the Indianapolis show were upgraded to seats in Jim Irsay’s, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, personal viewing box.
“Being in the box felt very special and I could see Taylor really well,” Ganger says. “So cool to see her in person. It was awesome to have my own bathroom and Shirley Temple. I loved seeing all her different outfits.”
At an Ohio State facility where Ganger received treatment, children could ride in a mini car with OSU football decorations to get around the facility. Ganger wished there was a motorized car that was pink and Barbie-themed, so the Glitter Girls and Three Love Bugs Local Gifts purchased a new vehicle and decorated it with her.
“Things like that get me, even today, a little bit taken back by just the generosity of some people and just going out of their way, building relationships and how kind people can be,” Ryan says.
New beginnings
At the end of August 2024, Ganger was confirmed to be cancer-free. Now, she hopes to support other children battling cancer.
Like many Nationwide Children’s Hospital patients, Ganger found joy in interacting with the therapy dogs provided through the hospital’s Butterfly Paws program and hopes to adopt her own dog and train it as a therapy dog to visit the hospital with.
“(She wants to) go back and repay and visit those children and say, ‘Hi, I did it, so can you,’ and share her story, and be there, because it’s really hard to relate to someone in there, and in their trauma, if you haven’t walked it yourself,” Sara says. “That’s kind of what we’ve learned is that’s how we can go back and help be there for other people.”
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.