LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Pregnant and diagnosed with cancer. That was the devastating reality for a Las Vegas mom-to-be who faced the challenge of saving her own life and the life of her unborn child.
It is a story FOX5 first told you about back in 2023, a story that now has a happy ending but also spotlights the need for more medical care in Las Vegas.
Baby Ruby is all smiles now playing with her older brother in their Las Vegas home but most of her life, her first 442 days, has been spent in a hospital.
Mom Aryanna Brewer Scott spoke to FOX5 while 24 weeks pregnant with Ruby in November 2023 from her California hospital bed as she battled blood cancer.
“I have to beat cancer because I have three kids that need me,” told FOX5 in November 2023.
Scott Brewer was also determined to save her unborn child. Ruby was born at 27 weeks weighing just one pound, three point six ounces.
“She was a micro preemie. Her lungs were very underdeveloped… We couldn’t hold her; we could barely touch her. Her little hand would come out and it would barely wrap around our fingertips,” Brewer Scott recounted.
As for mom, chemo, radiation, and immunotherapy were all unsuccessful. Doctors in southern California tried something new.
“They did is something called CAR T-cell therapy, they do that out here at UCLA. It brought me to remission,” Brewer Scott revealed in May 2024.
She then got a bone marrow transplant, but it has come with complications.
“I dealt with something called GVHD, which is graph-versus-host disease, from the transplant… the donor cells like attack my body. So that’s why my skin is like a little splotchy,” Brewer Scott explained.
Baby Ruby also faces ongoing medical challenges.
“She is still on the ventilator, but we have got hooked up with the pediatric pulmonologist out here, and he’s amazing. He’s the only pediatric pulmonologist out here,” Brewer Scott shared.
Without a specialized pediatric ENT doctor in Las Vegas, Baby Ruby must continue to go to California for care every six months. Brewer Scott must go every two weeks to see transplants specialists.
“Having to go back and forth is taxing,” Brewer Scott shared.
After living for a year and four months in hospitals, mom and baby are happy and ready to put their health challenges behind them.
“Looking back on everything, it’s just amazing like that we’re both alive and we’re here today. It’s just, it’s good to be home,” Brewer Scott expressed.
There are plans to open a children’s hospital in Las Vegas and address the state’s severe shortage of pediatricians. Intermountain Health will build it at the intersection of Durango and Sunset. The billion dollar, 150-bed facility will create nearly 12,000 jobs.
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