12/04/2025
Nina and Grace: A Mother and Her Sick Daughter Find Respite of Hope, Happiness at QLF
By Dave Scheiber
The little girl with the pink backpack dotted with rainbows arrives quietly with her mother on a bright and balmy morning at Quantum Leap Farm. She stays close to her mom as they walk toward the riding arena, where one of the therapy horses, Waffles, awaits to take her on the slow, steady ride that brings her a sense of peace and happiness each week.
This is Grace, and inside her backpack is another, smaller backpack, containing the powerful chemotherapy medicine that runs through a port in her small body 24 hours a day. Less than a year earlier, her mother, Nina, had been at her wits’ end trying to learn why her toddler was constantly feeling so ill and not getting any better.
“She had been sick for almost two months, and we were going back and forth to different ERs but not getting any answers,” Nina recalls. “They would say there’s nothing wrong with her. But then she got a fever that lasted two weeks, and she wasn’t eating anything and was having trouble sleeping. She was even misdiagnosed a couple of times.”
But this past February, doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa discovered her white blood cell count was off the charts. And that’s when Nina received the diagnosis: Grace suffered from High-risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or ALL. The words left Nina feeling numb, yet strangely relieved to know the cause of the unrelenting illness and that the disease is highly treatable.
Still, at only 2-and-a-half years old, Grace was thrust into a world of grueling chemotherapy, anxiety, and isolation. That made her vulnerable to all manner of dangerous and potentially deadly infections. All the plans and activities Nina had in mind for her little girl were suddenly on hold, replaced by an uncertain future.
The challenge was vastly compounded by the fact that Nina is a single mother who had only recently moved to Tampa Bay from Reno, Nev., to be near family and continue her job with a national custom T-shirt printing company. Working full-time to make ends meet, she now found herself searching for nannies with medical training to care for Grace – and willing to wear a mask with the understanding that she was immunocompromised.
“They were hard to find on short notice,” Nina explains. “Grace needs medicine three times a day and has a feeding tube. Most people are really intimidated by that, especially her being accessed 24/7 during her rounds of drugs with her chemo backpack and pump. Because of the many things that could go wrong, most nannies aren't comfortable with the risks and stress.”
In addition, Nina often had to cancel at the last minute due to frequent situations in which they would wind up back in the hospital, or when Grace stayed home because her blood cell counts were off. “That was a problem because most nanny agencies require a 24-hour notice to cancel,” she says. “So I had to end up relying on the back-up nanny on-call service, trusting a complete stranger with Grace’s care for that day.”
On top of that, watching her daughter suffer and cry through ongoing treatments – the sickness from chemo, the maze of tubes and long needles – was almost too much to bear.
The Sunday morning drives were no easier. Nina would buckle Grace into her car seat and set off in search of a neighborhood playground. But rather than seek a spot filled with other little kids to play with, Nina had to find a place with no children at all. It was a lonely but necessary pursuit to keep Grace safe from infection and give her a brief respite from the nightmare that had overtaken their lives.
Fortunately, Nina gradually found support and a sense of community with other cancer moms on the oncology floor. The bond developed during the times when Grace was well enough to be in the playroom, between treatments and endless hospital admissions.
"You could see in their eyes – the pain, grief, heartbreak, exhaustion, and desperate need for sleep – that they were going through the same struggles,” Nina says. “All it took was a simple nod of acknowledgment from one mom to another because you understood exactly what the other person was experiencing; no words were necessary.”
Then, out of the blue, came a break. “After being present for so many admissions,” Nina says, “I met a mom who asked me, 'Have you heard of 1Voice?'"
Nina knew nothing about the Tampa-based non-profit, founded and run by executive director Mary Ann Massolio to support children with cancer and their families. But she called and left a message. Massolio, who decades earlier had lost a child to cancer, called back immediately.
“She set up a meeting with me for the next day – I mean, it all happened so fast, I only wish I had known about her sooner,” Nina recalls. “I was trying to figure out how to make ends meet, not being able to send her to daycare for three years, and about to lose my job – it was just me.”
But all that changed thanks to 1Voice. Massolio wasted no time setting Nina up with various foundations to receive support and resources. She also ran a pre-school at 1Voice that Grace could attend safely with other children. And she even allowed Nina to stay and work remotely on her laptop from one of the back rooms, making it possible for her to attend to Grace at a moment’s notice.
“Mary Ann has been a blessing,” Nina says. “She’s been like a fairy godmother who connects you with everybody.” Including Quantum Leap Farm. In August, she suggested to Nina that she take Grace there so she could benefit from the calming, supervised rides on the farm’s therapy horses and work with the expert staff trained to help children and adults with cancer and other illnesses, as well as veterans suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.
“She was a little intimidated at first, but she’s gotten so confident,” Nina says. “When she comes off the horse with the staff member walking her, what you see in her face is like, ‘I just did this!’ It’s such an accomplishment. I had no idea how therapeutic riding these horses was. I thought, ‘Oh, it will be fun for her.’ But it is so much more than that – it’s made a difference in everything. Her social skills. She’s way calmer. She’s a completely different child afterward, because they go through so much when they’re not here.”
In fact, one day earlier, several nurses had to hold Grace steady to access her port. “She screamed so much from the pain, fear, and everything involving the procedure that she had lost her voice that evening,” Nina recollects. “It's just an awful experience, and I feel so bad that she has to go through so much at such a young age.”
But on this morning, pink backpack and all, Grace settles in the saddle and soon feels Waffles’ soothing gait. And in that moment, she is free from worries and pain – just a little girl, on top of the world, at Quantum Leap Farm.
