3-Year-Old Celebrates Year Without Cancer With 5K – runnersworld.com

Three-year-old Eleanor Stephens has big plans for her future. She wants to be a princess, and she wants to run faster.

Last week the princess-in-training logged her third 5K in DeLand, Florida, this one without much assistance from the stroller. And when she crossed the finish line, Eleanor celebrated not only another completed race, but also a full year of being NED: no evidence of disease.

Stephens was diagnosed with neuroblastoma—a cancer often found in the adrenal glands on the kidneys—when she was just 3 months old.

“She had cancer on her adrenal glands, on her whole liver, and in her bone marrow,” Sarah Stephens, Eleanor’s mom, told Runner’s World.

The infant’s cancer doubled in size every four days for two weeks, and then she went into respiratory distress. Eleanor required chemotherapy, which she responded well to after two weeks, and the cancer shrunk. However, when she was just over a year old, scans showed the cancer had progressed and spread.

“We expected her to respond to chemotherapy because she responded the first time,” Sarah said.

Unfortunately, she didn’t, so Eleanor underwent more aggressive treatment, including a 14-hour surgery to remove 100 percent of the cancer last January at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City—a long way from her Florida home. It was successful.

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For the past eight months, Stephens has been taking an oral maintenance medication as part of a clinical trial. Sarah said that has granted her daughter a chance at a regular life.

Since Stephens’s diagnosis, her family and friends have participated in a local 5K—the DeLand 5K—organized by . The nonprofit was started by Linda Ryan in 2012 after her third cancer diagnosis to help families affected by cancer with household bills. A marathoner herself, Ryan has used running to deal with her own cancer diagnoses.

Two years ago, Eleanor served as the race starter—a position of honor, Ryan said—before covering the distance in her stroller with mom and dad pushing. Last year, Stephens toddled through the finish line, but this year, she wanted to jump out of the stroller right away.

“There’s something about starting a race and walking through that finish line that has a lot of symbolic meaning,” Sarah said. “Quitting isn’t an option when you have cancer.”

Donning a pink tutu—“It’s a new tutu!” Eleanor told Runner’s World, excitedly—the runner-who-wants-to-be-a-princess threw in a few ballet moves as she worked her way toward the finish line.

Watch Eleanor Stephens in Action:

“Eleanor has lived a lot of her life in isolation because of her [compromised] immune system. And we know the effects these cancer treatments can have in the future,” Sarah said. “But we plan on being positive and giving Eleanor every chance she can have. She is the definition of perseverance.”

In honor of Eleanor’s first birthday in 2017, Sarah started , which supports local families who are affected by pediatric cancer. The organization’s name is a nod to Eleanor’s nickname, Warrior Princess.

While on the phone with Runner’s World, Eleanor was dancing in her pink tutu. And then, exercising. (Eleanor recently picked out hot pink shoes with rhinestones for running.)

“I ran in my tutu. I have fun,” she said.

“One day Eloise will run with a tutu, when she’s bigger,” Eleanor said of her 1-year-old sister, who was born at one end of the hospital while her big sister underwent chemotherapy at the other end.

“Eloise has brought hope and happiness to Eleanor so she’s not by herself,” Sarah said. “She’s her teammate.”

Courtesy of Sarah Stephens

Freelance Writer Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner’s World and the author of The Runner’s World Vegetarian Cookbook.