A 7-year-old girl in Idaho who has been battling cancer for three years has turned her 1,000th day of chemotherapy into a celebration involving strangers across the country.
Ahead of the date, people from across the United States are mailing Zoe Ray cards to wish her well.
"They say they're thinking of me and they share stories of encouragement," Zoe, who is entering second grade, told "Good Morning America." "It makes me really excited and happy and it gets me distracted opening the cards all day."
Zoe, of Eagle, Idaho, was just 5 years old when she fell and hit her head while playing at park. While checking her for injuries after that fall, doctors discovered a tumor roughly the size of a pingpong ball in Zoe's head, according to her mom, Chrissy Ray.
Zoe was diagnosed with optic nerve glioma, a rare and slow-growing brain tumor that occurs near the nerve that connects the eye to the brain.
The tumor's location makes it impossible to remove with surgery, so Zoe, who is already experiencing some vision loss, began chemotherapy in late 2017 to try to shrink the tumor, according to her doctor, Eugenia Chang, a pediatric hematology-oncology specialist at St. Luke's Medical Center in Boise.
The 7-year-old has undergone three different types of chemotherapy treatments over the past three years, each with their own side effects and complications.
"Each of the chemotherapies is different, but all of them will decrease her energy, decrease her appetite and that in turn will cause some intermittent headaches and just kind of feeling blah or under the weather," said Chang. "It's like having a low-grade flu all of the time."
Zoe will likely have to continue chemotherapy throughout her childhood, according to Chang.
The treatments also weaken Zoe's immune system, so she and her family have been extremely cautious about following stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic.
To reframe Zoe's 1,000th day of chemotherapy from a hardship to a milestone to be celebrated, her family decided to ask their neighbors, family and friends to mail Zoe cards to cheer her up.
Their plea went viral on Facebook and Zoe has received nearly 500 cards from more than two dozen states, leading Zoe to set a new goal ahead of her 1,000th day of treatment on Nov. 3.
"I want to get cards from all 50 states and I want to get 1,000 cards by my 1,000th day of chemotherapy," she said.
Zoe's mom has noticed a marked improvement in Zoe since the cards started arriving in the mail.
"She says when she's distracted by reading the cards her head doesn't hurt and her stomach doesn't hurt," said Ray. "She'll stand by the door waiting for the mail and just shake with excitement."
Chang said she too has noticed a difference in Zoe since the well-wishes started arriving.
"I don't think people realize how much of a difference they can make in other people's lives," she said. "People think of cancer as something that either kills you or you treat it and it's done and sometimes it's harder to have these kinds that are there and need to be treated on and off for years."
"These are the kinds of things that make all the difference for kids and it is amazing what her family has done to turn this from something that feels like it's just another, never-ending treatment that she's going to need to do for many more years to something that is an accomplishment," Chang added. "She got through this. She's a real fighter. She knows how to make something of her life even though there are obstacles in her way."
