#BraveMaeve is a loving, vibrant, and energetic 5 year with Down Syndrome who brings joy to everyone she meets. Diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in September, her sweet nature continues to shine throughout her battle. What started as an emergency room visit for stomach troubles ended in a diagnosis of leukemia within hours. Maeve just started her second year of preschool and she was thriving. Our entire life changed in an instant. A shocking as this was for the adults in her life, Maeve took everything in stride. And she continues to do so throughout her treatment. She tries to be the model patient and loves to help the nurses do her vitals and even help with  labs. To know Maeve is to love her - she’s empathetic, loving, social, funny, brutally honest, and smart. She’s tried to find normalcy in this journey and still tries to enjoy every day. She is in the third stage of treatment (January 2025) and is currently hospitalized often for her treatment. Maeve is in the high-risk category because she has down syndrome and she came in with a white blood cell count over 50,000 at the time of diagnosis. Because she is high risk category, this means that her treatments can be more intense and different than other kids who also have the same cancer.  Cancer has changed our entire family and the best way that we can describe it is it takes every sense of normalcy and predictability away from your life. We are no longer able to plan for the future, but we have to focus on the things that are going on minute by minute. In some ways, this has made us grow stronger as a family because we are focused on how to make every single day perfect for our fighter.