Meet Aubrey
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Meet Aubrey Hope Hutson. Aubrey was the perfect balance of all things—both a girly girl and an athletic All Star, embodying the best traits of everyone and everything. She had a deep love for music, dancing, softball, singing, drawing, Disney, shopping, and anything that sparkled or shined.
Aubrey's strength and courage were unmatched. She faced life’s challenges with grace, always staying positive and living each day to the fullest, no matter the obstacles she encountered. Her love for those around her was unwavering, and she always gave her heart to her family and friends. Aubrey had an eye for fashion and style, always dressing in the most fabulous outfits. Her unique sense of style matched her one-of-a-kind personality, and she truly was perfect in every definition of the word. Aubrey lived life with a radiance that could light up any room, leaving a lasting impression on all who knew her. Aubrey was a force of nature—a whirlwind of passion, love, athleticism, artistry, and talent. Like a canvas painted with every vibrant color imaginable, she was a gift from the heavens, a precious soul who made the world a better place simply by being in it. |
Aubrey's Story
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In April 2021, Aubrey started complaining that her knee was hurting. For a few weeks, we assumed it was growing or softball-related. In May it progressively worsened, so we took her to the doctor. They thought it was something with her tibial tuberosity and referred us to orthopedics to look further.
We made an appointment at Shriners, but while waiting, it got to where she couldn’t sleep at night. She would either be unable to fall asleep or the pain would wake her. We decided to take her to the emergency room, and they did blood work and an X-ray and said things were fine, possibly tendon-related. When we went to our appointment at Shriners and they did a bunch of scans and ordered her an MRI. Because of insurance, the MRI couldn’t happen for over a week. Pain intensified, so we took her back to the emergency room hoping for them to do an MRI to manage her pain. They looked her over and told us she'd be okay, and to wait a week and a half for the MRI and give her Tylenol. Well, the next day, we saw the color changing in her leg and she was unable to finish softball that night. This was still over a week away from when they would have done an MRI. So I decided to take her to Tampa to Saint Joseph Children’s Hospital. We got there after midnight, and they were hesitant to act because they didn’t know what to do, so they asked us what we wanted them to do. We told them to check her leg and tell us she was not going to lose it while we waited for an MRI. They took her to an ultrasound. They quickly moved us up to the hematology/oncology floor. They said she had a large blood clot in her femoral artery and needed to start blood thinners and find out why. It was discovered that she had a mass growing in her pelvis and compressing her artery. While at Saint Joseph Children’s Hospital, Aubrey had two MRIs, a CT scan, and a pet scan. It had spread to her lungs, lymph nodes and possibly a couple other places. There were lesions on her thigh and ribs that could have been unrelated. They did a biopsy under radiology intervention. That came back as stage 4 intermediate risk embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma and Aubrey began her fight. |