Just over a year ago, 11-year-old Sky­lar Wait­he was a live­ly, en­er­getic stu­dent with a pas­sion for singing. Then, al­most overnight, Sky­lar’s life changed. Ac­cord­ing to her moth­er, Leigh Kirk, it be­gan last Sep­tem­ber when Sky­lar start­ed hav­ing fre­quent headaches and vom­it­ing.

“Two days be­fore [her] birth­day, we took her to see a movie,” she said, adding, “The next morn­ing she was vom­it­ing.” On the day of her birth­day, they took her to the doc­tor, who di­ag­nosed her with a gas­tro in­fec­tion, but the vom­it­ing per­sist­ed. Sky­lar be­gan to lose her bal­ance—strug­gling to walk short dis­tances and bump­ing in­to door­ways.

She was even­tu­al­ly re­ferred to the Neu­rol­o­gy Clin­ic at Mount Hope Hos­pi­tal, where an MRI on Jan­u­ary 21 re­vealed she had a brain tu­mour and a buildup of flu­id in her brain.