Everyone said it was over. Doctors, nurses, sympathetic bystanders and all of the research in the world said that Abby Furco had no chance of surviving her battle with leukemia. The outlook was bleak from the start. Abby was diagnosed with chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 4 and given a 20 percent chance of survival.
But she had other plans.
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For the next six years Abby split her time between hospitals and home receiving every perceivable round of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants to keep up with her disease. Her loving family never left her side.
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Abby survived infections that should have killed her and adverse reactions to trial medication and bone marrow transplants, but never gave up hope.
“All we could do was watch her fight and try to get better,” said Patty Furco, her mother, said.
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“I still have flashbacks to sitting at my dining room table with the head hospice nurse choosing a funeral home,” Patty told Global News. “[My husband] Joe and I talked about where we wanted her remains. I clearly remember thinking about specific songs I wanted played during her memorial service.”
But inexplicably, Abby started to get better.
Days, weeks, then months went by and the 10-year-old began to walk again, growing stronger every day.
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“We have no idea [how she got better] and there is no way to test it,” Abby Pediatric Hematologist and Oncologist Dr. Jacob Wessler said. “She’s the only patient I have to do this. She is one for one as far as our experience.”
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According to Dr. Wessler, hospital staff began slowing her treatments and giving her less medicine – and her body began to fight back against the cancer.
She started to live her life and even got to meet Guy Fieri, a favorite tv host.
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“She told us, ‘I have so much living to do,’” Patty told PEOPLE. “We’ve stopped asking why she’s made this recovery and just started looking to her future.”
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Abby is now in full remission and started the sixth grade this year. While nobody can explain her miraculous recovery, the Furco’s are determined to look to Abby’s future and the life she has ahead of her. We’re pulling for you Abby!
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