LA MIRADA, Calif. — Ten-year-old Hannah Powell-Auslam is trying to remain brave as she copes with a rare form of breast cancer.
“I feel like a kid inside, but sometimes I feel like an adult when I’m always at the hospital,” Hannah told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired Wednesday.
The fifth-grader complained of itching in her side in April. Her mother discovered a lump, and that led to a diagnosis of breast cancer.
“Hannah’s prognosis is very good, and the type of cancer is very slow-growing,” her father, Jeremy, said in an e-mail Wednesday.
Hannah had surgery and has begun chemotherapy. “You feel like you’re sick all the time. You just want to go lay in bed,” she said.
Because mainstream breast-cancer treatments were developed for adults, Hannah’s chemotherapy must be tailored to her small size.
The show filmed Hannah getting her head shaved rather than waiting for chemotherapy to take its toll. Other family members got buzz cuts too. “I might be just a little bit afraid. I love my hair. I worked so hard to grow it,” Hannah said before the event.
