8-year-old girl seeks to inspire other kids with cancer through dolls, coloring book
When you first meet 8-year-old Ailani Myers, the first thing she'll want to do is show you her dolls.
"My first doll is 'Survivor,' and she's a really sweet doll," Ailani told sister station WBAL.
The girl, who is from Severn, Maryland, has more than 100 dolls — not just to help her have fun, but to help her fight acute lymphoblastic leukemia, with which she was diagnosed just before her third birthday.
"When I go to the hospital, I always bring her with me so I don't have to be scared of getting poked and stuff," Ailani said.
Since her diagnosis, she has undergone two bone marrow transplants and CAR T-cell therapies. She has participated in several clinical trials and relapsed several times, but you'd never know by looking at her.
"She is just a ball of fun and sunshine and energy, and even on the worst days, she is always finding a way to be happy or bring some light into the situation," said Princecine Johnson Myers, Ailani's mother.
Ailani also looks for ways to bring light to others. In May, Ailani partnered with another organization to raise money to donate more than 20 dolls — many of which have bald heads — to cancer patients at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore.
"Kids that have a bald head, they might want to have dolls that look like them so they won't feel embarrassed about having a bald head, so they don't have to cover it up with a hat or anything," Ailani told WBAL.
Ailani is not only using dolls to empower kids with cancer, she is also using her very own coloring book, which shows her journey with cancer — including when she had to get MRIs and other treatments. Her goal is to show other kids with cancer that they're not alone.
"I want them to be brave and strong and get treatments just like me," Ailani said.
As Ailani continues to fight brave and strong, she's inspiring so many people, including her own parents who fight alongside her.
"It's very exhausting, but when you see your child — the one that is actually fighting the disease — constantly trying to find a way to be happy and to not feel sorry for herself, then how, as a parent, can we feel sorry for ourselves?" said Kurt Myers, Ailani's father.
Ailani has also attended and performed at CureFest for Childhood Cancer Weekend in Washington, D.C., an event where organizations converge to raise awareness for childhood cancer during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September. Ailani and her family want to see more people get involved in this year's CureFest from Sept. 20-22.
