Candlelighters Connections Newsletter Sum m er 2019 Fam ily That Shines - Zuniga/Soria Fam ily Four year old Sol is full of life and love and you’ll rarely see her without a smile on her face. She loves the beach and loves her two dogs, Otis and Bitsy, and her two chickens, Coco and Heihei. She lives in Hillsboro with her mom and dad, Ruth and Andy. At age one, doctors discovered a cancerous mass on her adrenal gland and had it removed a few months later. The surgery went well the family started to live a “normal” life as everything seemed ok. Then in 2017, they were visiting family in Costa Rica when they noticed a bump on Sol’s stomach. They took her in for testing and their worst fears became a reality…Sol had a tumor the size of a baseball. “On our 15th wedding anniversary, we took the next available flight back to the USA and went straight from the airport to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital where the team of doctors were expecting us. Testing confirmed the cancer had returned but this time wrapping several organs, and it was high risk,” says Ruth. “At 20 months old our little girl started to go through different aggressive treatments. She had six rounds of chemotherapy, one bone marrow rescue which included toxic levels of chemotherapy, six surgeries including the removal of one of her kidneys, 12 rounds of radiation, six rounds of immunotherapy, bone marrow aspirations, hundreds of pokes, dozens of different types of medicines, visits to the clinic, Emergency Room nights and a life splitalmost to the exact calculation – between time at the hospital and time at home. At the end of almost one and a half years, Sol ended treatment on October 1st, 2017 and she has been in remission since.” Andy and Ruth moved to the USA to teach
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