For four years, Westmoreland father Nickel Green says he has lived in a cycle of hope, delay and worsening fear as he waits for a medical referral he believes could save his nine-year-old daughter’s life.

His daughter, Nickkara Green, was diagnosed in 2023 with Stage IV Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) — a rare and aggressive cancer that affects soft tissue and, in some cases, spreads slowly but persistently to vital organs.

According to the US National Cancer Institute, soft tissue sarcomas account for only about one per cent of all cancers, and ASPS represents an extremely small fraction of those cases, with roughly 80 diagnoses annually in the United States.