Meeting Bailey is like absorbing sunshine. Maybe it’s her countless mornings watching the sunrise on Melbourne’s beaches or her many years nannying young kids – you can’t help but feel warmth and love around Bailey.
Bailey has always been a star. Imagine 3-year-old Bailey dancing, spinning, and leaping as a baton twirling toddler. Bailey’s twirling legacy began with her great grandmother, who passed it down through Bailey’s grandmother, mother, and then to Bailey and her sisters. Bailey jokes that she was a little forced into it, but she loved it. Bailey went on to becoming a national baton twirler at the top of her division.
Twirling helped take her mind off everything. It was hard, but it was rewarding. While it was a competitive environment, the twirling community is small, and Bailey created lasting friendships with her teammates and competitors. Bailey continued twirling through the years, entering her final semester of middle school with excitement.
That excitement was eclipsed when her whole family contracted a cold. While the rest of her family recovered, Bailey never rebounded. She remembers struggling to persevere through baton practice, unable to get through the first 30 seconds of her routines. She received answers in the form of her cancer diagnosis on March 7th, 2017: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) mutation. The next months were a whirlwind. She developed an infection that progressed to sepsis, and she was in an induced coma for a month. After spending months in the hospital and despite almost dying twice, her body persevered, and she finished chemotherapy in 2018.
Then began the next hardest part: rehabilitation. She spent her next year relearning all her basic life skills: eating, sleeping, walking, etc. Bailey shares that she became a different person after her cancer treatment, both physically and emotionally. She was eventually able to get off tube feeds and back to her new physical baseline in 2019, but treatment made her grow up fast; she says it was hard to reintegrate into regular life. Her priorities changed, and it was hard to make friends that were dependable, mature, and understanding. She did not want people to treat her differently for her legacy as “the cancer kid.” Her cancer experience changed how she viewed the world, and she saw people differently; she realized she’d rather sit with the person sitting alone than with the popular crew. She channeled her energy into a few good friends who continue to support her today.
As she adapted to life after cancer, Bailey traveled to Hawaii and Europe, got her driver’s license, graduated high school in 2021, and accomplished so much she never thought possible while she was in treatment. She started nannying Liam, Sean, and Gianna, her god-siblings, who became her second family. She was always nurturing and loving towards kids, but her 5 years as their nanny were amongst the best of her life.
Life took her for another spin. In August 2021, after graduating high school that spring and anticipating starting college, Bailey spent the fall in the hospital navigating COVID, pneumonia, and pulmonary issues, only to learn that her cancer returned. This relapse felt like a gut-punch; she needed to put on hold the life she had so carefully built. She started a treatment plan with Nemours Children’s Hospital in Delaware and received CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell) treatment in November 2021. By the end of January 2022, they were still not sure the treatment would be successful, but Bailey surprised everyone by going into remission.
After beating cancer for the second time, Bailey began what she calls her “rebellion years.” She lived her life to the fullest; she partied hard, got tattoos, and started therapy. She began to confront some of the hard things she had been ignoring, like the true impact of being diagnosed with cancer so young and navigating her teenage years filled with chemotherapy, blood draws, and clinic visits. She continued nannying, enjoying the beach, creating the friend group of her dreams, and getting her life on track. She remained in remission until the summer of 2025, when she began her bone marrow transplant (BMT) journey here at UF Health.
After her first diagnosis, her family learned her brother, Brant, could be her stem cell donor. At first, this possibility felt overwhelming, as he was young and scared of needles. But this summer, when the option was presented to him, Brant was all in. Even though Bailey said he could say no if he wanted, Brant wanted to be her donor. Bailey considers Brant her closest confidante–the person to whom she tells everything. This whole experience has made them closer, and they plan on getting matching tattoos of a central line with a ribbon wrapped around it to commemorate his stem cell donation and her transplant. On August 22, 2025, Bailey received her BMT and began the road to building a whole new immune system and beginning her next chapter.
Through all of her many hospitalizations and long days in infusion appointments, Bailey’s humor and stubbornness have prevailed. She wants to prove everyone wrong, especially the people who said she couldn’t accomplish all she has. Her UF Health medical team has made Bailey feel empowered, seen, and heard. She values her self-advocacy, and she appreciates that her opinions have been taken seriously and her concerns acknowledged. Her providers, nurses, Child Life Specialists, and Streetlight friends have helped pass the time and make her feel supported. Bailey reflects that at no other hospital has there been such a focus on young adults and that she appreciates the attention to the older kids. Whether it was chatting about The Summer I Turned Pretty or giving the latest review of a book she finished (Bailey read a grand total of 9 books during her BMT admission), these moments of connection helped Bailey stay true to herself and pass the seemingly endless hours of treatment.
Bailey’s advice to someone beginning their cancer journey: “Take everyday as it is. Today may be horrible, and you’re allowed to have bad days. But appreciate the good ones.” She has learned to appreciate the little things, and she is excited to move back to Melbourne and soak up as many beach sunrises as possible. She hopes to return to work in billing (no nannying just yet!) and gain some more independence with hopes of finding a partner, settling down, and creating a family. As much as she loves her parents and her siblings, Brant, Tallisyn, and Carissa, she is ready to create the life of which she’s always dreamed. In the meantime, she hopes to travel, her dream destinations including Oregon, Wyoming, Maine, Greece, and Italy. But alongside these big dreams, she hopes to treasure each moment and live life to the fullest.
To celebrate Bailey’s BMT journey, her medical team and Streetlight community gathered together to honor her bell ringing at 100 days post-BMT, a milestone that allows her to move out of post-transplant housing and back home to Melbourne! We listened to Harry Styles, Noah Kahan, and Lizzy McAlpine while we made personalized bookmarks and bejeweled books! Books were donated by a local bookstore, The Lynx Books. Inspired by her love of reading, we gifted Bailey a copy of “Oh The Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss filled with notes from her medical team and Polaroid photos of the party! Congrats Bailey!
