Meet three of the bravest young girls in America: 4-year-old Ainsley Peters, 3-year-old Rylie Hughey, and 6-year-old Rheann Franklin. They all have one very tragic and one very amazing thing in common. At their incredibly tender ages, each was diagnosed with a different form of cancer. But after losing hair, battling chemo, and multiple surgeries, they are all happily in remission.
This photo of Ainsley, Rylie and Rheann went viral earlier this year after it was posted by photographer Lora Scantling on Facebook.
The girls had never met each other prior to the photo shoot.
Scantling explains how even though the girls hadn’t met before, they instantly bonded at the session — connecting to each other’s struggle as well as strength. At the time of the photo, Rylie and Ainsley were already on their way to remission while Rheann seemed to still have a long way to go. Now, she joins her new friends on the road to health.
Rylie suffered from kidney cancer and underwent surgery as well as chemo.
But she’s still all smiles as her family wrote on their Facebook, “The loss of hair and the daily rounds of medication haven’t slowed this child down yet!”
Ainsley was put into a 10-day medically-induced coma following her diagnosis with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August 2013. Now cancer free, she will require 2 years of maintenance chemo.
“She has had to re-learn everything and has done so bravely,” her family writes on Facebook.
Rheann’s outlook was particularly grim when diagnosed with mucoid spindle sarcoma, a rare form of brain cancer. She has undergone 5 brain surgeries.
But today she is cancer free, though she will still need further treatment.
(h/t: BuzzFeed) Hopefully we’ll see more of their smiles together again for a second photoshoot in the future! Share the heartwarming story with your friends using the link below.
