Considering all she’s been through — an eight-year fight against cancer, her body shot through with toxic chemotherapy drugs and radiation — Tayde Cruz Dodds had no reason to think she’d ever be enjoying an afternoon spent bouncing her smiling, cooing, baby girl on her knee.
“Uno, dos , tres — weeee!” the 37-year-old native of Mexico said as she played with nearly 7-month-old Tayde Sofia Dodds. The sunlight pouring through a window on this afternoon framed a picture of complete bliss: a mom and her child, both happy and healthy.
It also illuminated a twofold, long-shot success story. The first long-shot was that Tayde finally beat her childhood cancer more than 20 years ago and grew to a become a healthy adult.