CBS4 News Takes Center Stage
Aug 6, 2009 8:32 pm US/Eastern
Girl With Brain Cancer Still Needs Your Help
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
A six year old South Florida girl with a terminal illness got a break from needles, doctors and hospital rooms Thursday. Gildiana Soza smiled and laughed with glee as she ventured out to swim with the dolphins at the Miami Seaquarium.
It's a special trip for Soza. Doctors diagnosed her with brain cancer in 2007. At the time, the news crushed her mother, Diana Hislop.
"I didn't think I was gonna see her anymore, and I just asked God to help me," said Hislop with tears in her eyes. "Gildiana didn't speak, didn't walk, it was very terrible."
Doctors treated her with chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant. For awhile, Soza seemed to be improving. But last year more brain tumors were discovered. Doctors intensified her treatment and Soza fell into a coma.
"I thought she was gone, I thought she had gone," cried her mom. "It was very awful. She got all burnt up it was like if you get a chicken and you put it in the oven, and it comes out burned that's the way she was."
But despite all the medical interventions, in June doctors told her Soza had only six months left to live. As if that wasn't bad enough, life at home was also deteriorating. Hislop is a single mother caring for Soza and her 12-year-old brother Armando. She lost her job because she had to be by Soza's side all the time. The family was evicted from their home and their car was seized.
Now they're living at Camillus House, a homeless shelter in downtown Miami--a broken home and a broken family. Soza has an 8-year-old brother in Nicaragua. He wants to spent time with his sister before it's too late, but his mother can't afford the money to pay for immigration lawyers and airfare to get him here.
If you'd like to help the family you can call the
Neighbors 4 Neighbor's hotline at (305)597-4404 or make an online secured credit card donation.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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