After beating cancer, twice, South St. Paul girl aims to make history

Ariel Moralez just assumed it was typical kids-being-kids-style rough housing.
Her seven-year-old daughter, Kaelee, had bruises on her arms and legs, and complained of being sore. But she was a seemingly normal, active kid with a younger brother at home who she enjoyed playing with.
But as the pain near her neck persisted, and the bruising continued, Ariel's motherly instincts took over.

"After bringing her to the doctor two or three times for the neck pains, finally within that month of September, we were referred to the neurosurgeon," Ariel said. "That following week, Kaelee ended up in the hospital because her throat was swollen shut."
The initial diagnosis was mononucleosis, but Ariel was adamant about the chronic neck pain. A cyst in the neck isn't uncommon for children, and a CT scan would probably reveal what was really going on, so the emergency room doctor ordered one.
One look at the scans revealed a serious, but not shocking, diagnosis: a tumor in Kaelee's cervical spine. Still, there was hope. Ariel and her son, Zayden, each suffer from Neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes tumors to form on nerve tissue.
Tumors associated with Neurofibromatosis are usually benign and symptoms are often mild. One of the complications, however, can be severe pain. Ariel was hopeful that the tumor on Kaelee's cervical spine was a manifestation of this disorder.

"Right away, we thought it was [Neurofibromatosis]," Ariel said. "Then we went to see the surgeon, he thought it was that as well. But then when he went to remove it ..."
Surgery to remove the tumor and subsequent testing on it revealed a much different, and more devastating story: it was cancerous. Kaelee was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare but painful type of cancer typically found in the soft tissue around one's bones.
What made the news especially hard was that cancer had just taken Ariel's 34-year-old sister, Kaelee's beloved Aunt, Jennifer, less than a year prior.
So while a cancer diagnosis may have been easier to disguise from a normal kid around Kaelee's age, she only knew one thing: cancer took my aunt.
"She knows what the word cancer means because of my sister," Ariel said. "They were really close. And when she heard that, she thought she was going to die."
Still grieving her sister, Ariel was now faced with the prospect of cancer now taking her oldest child as well.
"I don't think I've ever come back mentally from that whole situation," Ariel said. "My sister died Sept. 3 of 2016 and it was almost a year after that we started with Kaelee."
In October of 2017 -- just a few weeks removed from thinking the spurts of pain were nothing out of the ordinary -- Ariel's now eight-year-old daughter practically became a resident of Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.
"It was just nuts," Ariel said. "I couldn't even process what was happening until, I think, her first day of chemotherapy."
The surgery to remove her tumor was Oct. 17, and 10 days later, she returned to the hospital to begin her first chemo treatment.
Fourteen rounds of chemo followed, along with 30 rounds of radiation. Kaelee also had surgery to remove the tumor from her spine and five more operations after that to correct the tipping of her spine and to make it stronger.
"Once she lost her hair, it was the hardest thing in the world for us," Ariel said. "My daughter resembles my sister completely, so watching her go through it made us think, 'OK, is she going to make it?' It was hard for all of us because we had just lost my sister the year before."
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It was during this time in the hospital that Kaelee's path became intertwined with hockey for the very first time.
Unable to play as a kid because of her illness, Kaelee had three visitors come to her hospital room during her time at Children's in Minneapolis, when current forwards Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno, and former Wild defenseman Gustav Olofsson stopped by.
The three spent time with Kaelee, presented her with a special 'Hockey Fights Cancer' blanket, took photos and signed autographs.
Kaelee was especially fond of Eriksson Ek.

"My dad is a big Wild fan too, so ever since then, he'll send over pictures. And anything that ever comes over, always has Eriksson Ek's signature and his number on there."
Last year, she was invited to Xcel Energy Center before a game, where she was a special guest of Eriksson Ek's ahead of the team's Hockey Fights Cancer game. After taking warmup in the team's special lavender jersey, Eriksson Ek presented it to Kaelee and her family.
"Ever since she got his jersey, she's just fallen in love," Ariel said. "We were at Masonic and he came up on the screen with the rest of the players and she pointed him out and said, 'Look mom!'
"He's just inspired her through everything. The day she got his jersey, she said, 'I'm gonna sleep in it!' And she slept in it."
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Kaelee never played hockey growing up, but her grandpa watches religiously on television. That's how Kaelee was first introduced, and after grandpa brought her to her first game, she was hooked.
"She always wants to go to a game," Ariel said.
Unable to play because of her illness, she became a little sister to the University of St. Thomas women's team, where her passion for the game grew even more.
It also helped her establish one of her first life-long goals: to be a history maker.

"She wants to be the first Minnesota Wild girl player," Ariel said. "The only thing that was holding her back was her spinal surgeries. But the doctor cleared her, and now she's able to play hockey."
The Moralez family won't have to look far for even more inspiration. They live in South St. Paul, a city that boasts one of the finest hockey traditions in all of Minnesota, one that Kaelee aims to be a part of in the near future.
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In July of 2018, Kaelee's hard work paid off. She was diagnosed as cancer-free, and was ready to restart life as just a normal kid.
"It was the biggest relief," Ariel said.
But that relief was short-lived.
Earlier this year, in August, the bruising returned. In September, there were more scans and more bloodwork.
Then, another phone call from the doctor.
"We need to get oncology back on board because there's abnormal cells in her blood," Ariel remembered the voice on the other side of the line telling her.
Ariel assumed it was a return of the Ewing's sarcoma, but the doctors were skeptical. The tests were sent to pathology, and a couple days later, the verdict was rendered: she would need to be re-admitted to the hospital to be treated for Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Perhaps even more frustrating than the diagnosis was how it came about. Not only was the leukemia related to her initial bout with Ewing's, it came as a direct result.
"Something that saved her life gave her cancer," Ariel said. "The treatment in the chemo and in the radiation caused her leukemia to flare."
Kaelee spent 36 more days in the hospital, getting additional treatment and testing done to see if she would be able to get a bone marrow transplant. On Oct. 1, she was admitted to the University of Minnesota, where she had her transplant.
The family found out earlier this month that Kaelee is now 100 percent donor, which means that blood cells inside Kaelee's body are replicating healthy donor cells, not Kaelee's cancerous ones.
In other words, it was the best possible news they could have hoped for.
"She took to her transplant," Ariel said. "It was the best news ever. I don't even have words for it."
For the second time in the past couple of years, Kaelee hopes now to embark on a normal childhood, one now with hockey in her future.
The goal now is to get healthy and strong enough to get on the ice and play organized hockey for the first time in her life, either this winter or next, depending on what her doctors say.
And while she's getting a late start playing her favorite sport, knowing Kaelee, it wouldn't be wise to bet against her.
"She just wants to be a normal kid," Ariel said. "She's super strong. She's courageous.
"To be as strong as she is ... I don't even know. I want to break sometimes knowing how much she's gone through. But she keeps me going. She's a fighter."
All photos courtesy of the Moralez family