When Cierra McCauley was five years old, her parents noticed something strange.
“She had a mass in her neck from her earlobe to her shoulder. We followed it almost a year through her pediatrician,” said her mother, Marci. “Her pediatrician was like, ‘Oh, kids get swollen nymph nodes all the time. It’s nothing to worry about. Let’s run antibiotics, and see if it goes down.’”
It didn’t.
“After that, we went to an ear, nose and throat specialist. And he said the same thing, ‘Kids get swollen lymph nodes.’ She was a competitive gymnast and dancer at the time and fell doing a gymnastics move and fractured her clavicle.