At the time, father Shawn Cress thought daughter Chloe, then 12 years old, just needed some physical therapy. But the limp turned into a fever, which led to lab tests at the doctor's office that "didn't look good," Shawn recalls. All this for the Kingsport, Tennessee family turned into a referral to Niswonger Children's Hospital in Johnson City, about 34 miles away, where doctors gave Chloe a CT scan. It was stage 4 cancer -- alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, which is cancer in the skeletal muscles, according to the American Cancer Society . Not even 12 hours after the results came back, Chloe was flown to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and the family has been there ever since.

Source: CNN December 15, 2019 09:56 UTC