Wayne Co. baby youngest to be diagnosed with rare leukemia

WAYNE CO., IL (WFIE) - A Wayne County woman found out that her daughter is the youngest person ever to be diagnosed with Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia.

There are only two doctors in the world who specialize in it and it is usually diagnosed in children between the ages of six months and five years. But Vaida Scott was diagnosed when she was just six weeks old.

Vaida is one of only 200 people in the world that are affected by the disease.

Her mother Felicia says Vaida's war with cancer began before the first battle was ever fought.

"We had her three months early, so she was diagnosed six week before she was supposed to be born," said Felicia.

Vaida weighed just under two pounds at birth. To her parents, that became the least of their worries.

"We found out she had a brain bleed, her white blood cells were shooting up way higher than what normal is," said Felicia.

The doctors couldn't determine the cause of her high blood cell count, so Vaida's parents took her to the St. Louis Children's Hospital, for a second opinion. But after two weeks, the doctors came to a conclusion and told her parents that she had cancer.

"She weighed three pounds at the time, so that made her the youngest and the smallest to ever have been diagnosed with this type of cancer. It accounts for only 1% of all childhood cancer patients," said Felicia.

A string of chemo treatments began, along with exploratory surgery around her stomach that removed her spleen.

Doctors told the Scott family that Vaida would need a bone marrow transplant in order to live, but she was still grossly underweight for the procedure.

"We found out she weighed three pounds and she had to weigh eight pounds 14 ounces," said Felicia.

It wasn't until October that they found a suitable donor online.

Vaida has met the weight requirements for the transplant and her operation is in January.

Click here to follow Vaida's journey on the family's Facebook page.

Click here to find out how you can help and become a bone marrow donor.