Aria Strong

#WeAreAriaStrong

DREAM TRIP TO DISNEY WORLD AND
GIVE KIDS THE WORLD VILLAGE

$1,719.90 OF $5,000

Nevaeh before diagnosis was learning to walk and beginning to say her first words. Always a happy baby. I can’t ever remember a day when she wasn’t happy. Always so loving and caring, and that hasn’t changed to this day. Prior to her diagnosis, She enjoyed being outside & going to the park.

Once she became ill from bad COVID-19 side effects and pneumonia, which end up putting her in the hospital pediatric unit she lost the ability to walk. She was becoming so lethargic little did we know cancer was growing in her tiny body. Getting the Cancer diagnosis has affected our family because we all live in fear. Fear that we will have to redo this all over again. Fear that our little girl will not make it. Fear that cancer will come back. Fear that our family will once again get broken.

Every month we go for labs it’s a gut-wrenching pain, we pray each time the mutation remains dormant. I ask a lot of questions, always! God forbid if she were to relapse she will then need a bone marrow transplant. I’ve personally seen how hard transplants are on tiny children. It’s hard to be prepared for the unprepared. We can’t ever be prepared for something like this. Mentally, emotionally, financially, and physically. It’s an all-in-one feeling. A cancer diagnosis has affected our family financially. Using our personal savings (savings we had to potentially purchase our first home and credit cards) to get by to be there for our daughter because we didn’t know another way to get by. I mean bills didn’t stop, rent didn’t stop, insurance, car bills, nothing stopped. While our finances stopped everything else kept going.

Before diagnosis, we would do a lot of family outings to theme parks and parks. Enjoying life with both our girls. In March of 2022, we had planned a trip to Disneyland to celebrate my daughter Penelope's birthday, instead, we had to cancel and ask for a refund because she would then get diagnosed with Cancer on Feb 2, 2022.
My family has missed out on a lot. Due to our finances, we’ve had to make changes, my family is limited in the things we can do.

Our main concern is making memories with our daughter. We are fully aware and take full responsibility for our mistakes and the choices we made in putting ourselves into debt but no amount of money can ever make up for the memories we can have with our daughters, especially with Nevaeh, who has literally fought for her life and continues to fight for her life. We almost lost her twice due to a treatment that was meant to save her life and did save her life. This dream trip would be everything and more for my family.

- Raquel Visoso