A pair of sisters from Wheaton, Illinois, stopped by ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ Monday to perform an inspirational dance routine and share how the youngest has been battling cancer since the age of 3.
Ava Blaser has danced her way through some of the most challenging moments of her life and she was able to share that on the Ellen Show alongside her 16-year-old sister Emma.
The Blaser sisters performed a moving modern dance piece to Coldplay’s famous “Fix You,” shortly before chatting with Ellen about the hardships Ava has faced.
“I feel like it (dance) helped me because dancing makes me really happy and it makes me stay humble and positive throughout,” Ava expressed. “It really distracts me from everything that’s going on.”
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Ava said she was diagnosed with a stage 5 kidney cancer at the age of 3 on June 2011. She underwent nine rounds of radiation and 29 weeks of chemotherapy before having surgery on her left kidney and part of her right. After being cancer free for the following 6 years, unfortunately, Ava relapsed and on January 2018 doctors said they found a cancerous spot on the partially-remaining kidney.
“They told us she wasn’t going to be able to dance because her treatment was going to be so harsh for her relapse…” Emma said.
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Despite being told by doctors she would be too weak to dance, Ava reveals dance served as an outlet to cope with everything, allowing both sisters to remain positive.
“We spent so much time together and I go down for all of her treatments and her scans and everything,” Emma said. “We’re best friends; we choreograph together and everything and we have a relationship that’s really different than a lot of siblings.”
Eight months of chemo and one last surgery to remove the newly-found spot later, as of September 11, Ava has been cancer free.
After the girls mentioned they were both huge fans of freestyle hip-hop dancer “tWitch,” he surprised them with VIP tickets to a ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ show tour.
In addition, on behalf of Shutterfly, Ellen gave each sister a $20,000 check to go toward their college tuition to help the Blaser family alleviate some of the stress that goes along with medical expenses.
