VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Emily Buck has crushed cancer, and she wants you to help crush cancer, also.
WAVY-TV 10, along with other sponsors, are heading up Sunday’s stationary bike ride to Crush Cancer at the Cavalier Golf & Yacht Club in Virginia Beach.
Since 2016, we’ve reported the courageous battles of those who have fought cancer, and Emily, an 8-year-old student at Creeds Elementary School and this year’s Crush Cancer spokesperson, is nothing if not courageous. She was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia.
But Emily is also a ball of fire and energy, well-spoken about her battle against cancer — and very funny.
“Well, Campbell is allergic to cats,” Emily said. “But then, whenever she sees a needle, she basically goes up, like on a ceiling, and hides like a cat, and to me, I just lay there like nothing is going to happen. … Yeah it hurts, but not that much. … Unfortunately, yes, I got very used to the needles. I got used to them.”
For the first time since September 2023, Emily is on a school bus, and it’s a big deal.
The bus driver even announced it.
“I got on, and they said we got a new person on the bus, and it is Emily Buck,” she said with one of the greatest laughs ever. “Then my friends on the bus said she’s right here, and I like, said, ‘girls you’re embarrassing me.’ I mean it was really embarrassing.”
Make no mistake, Emily has had a tough go of it.
She had to be homeschooled by Shari Bishop, which she didn’t mind.
“I didn’t mind homeschooling,” Emily said, again with a hearty laugh. “My favorite thing was that because I get to lay around on the couch.”
10 On Your Side met Emily with her grandparents Rob and Carol Buck at a local park.
“She, at the time of homeschooling, had zero immunity, and she couldn’t be around anybody that was sick,” said Emily’s grandmother Carol Buck.
You see, Emily wasn’t well around Oct. 1, 2023,
“I was nauseous,” Emily said. “I was sick to my stomach. I used to be like a ball of joy.”
Emily said she got tired, stopped eating, then five days later on Oct. 6, 2023, at CHKD, Emily was diagnosed with T-Cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive form of cancer that develops quickly.
Her white blood cell counts hit zero.
Carol Buck called it a vicious cycle.
“And it was zero for the longest time because the chemotherapy would kill the white blood cells, and then they would get her off of it,” Carol Buck said. “She’d get a little bit of a break, and then cell counts would build back up, and then she’d have to go back on the chemotherapy, and it would kill the blood cells again. It was a vicious cycle.”
For a year-and-a-half, Emily has been fighting a vicious foe.
“Infections and stuff — the chemotherapy would give her sores, which is a normal thing, and she would not heal from it,” Carol Buck said.
Back and forth to CHKD. From the pictures provided by her family, you can tell it has been a tough road.
“It was tough,” Emily said.
Her grandmother countered: “But you’re a tough cookie, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m a really tough cookie crumble,” Emily said with a laugh.
“I always said when she was done with this, she will definitely be a force to be reckoned with,” Carol Buck said.
Her grandfather, Rob Buck, said “she’s been through stuff I could not go through.”
Emily has been blessed by what the family calls “The Village.”
As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and the local community has been amazingly supportive.
The Make a Wish Foundation sent Emily, her dad Justin, mother Carrie, and sister Campbell to Disney World.
Here’s the good news, In October 2023, shortly after word of leukemia, after massive chemotherapy, Emily went into remission. There were no active cancer cells in her body, and through further testing, it remains that way.
Total remission.
Fingers-crossed.
Emily wanted to draw a picture of what that means.
“There used to be cancer — all these dots,” Emily said as she drew a circle and put a lot of dots in it to identify cancer. “There used to be like, thousands of cancers in me, and now there’s like that much in me,” showing another circle with only two dots.
There are some things she can’t do anymore, like gymnastics, but you can see she has plenty of energy, running and swinging, and she’s full of a lot of fun.
“You should try swinging with your feet out,” she told WAVY’s Andy Fox as they hit the swings. “Don’t lean back.”
And then, there’s the power of prayer.
The family credits the village of prayer.
“I feel like almost every church in the whole universe was praying,” Emily said with a wide grin. “It feels good.”
“We have friends who live out of town, and their whole town prayed,” Carol Buck said, showing emotion as she teared up with happy tears. “The community response has been overwhelming and emotional…we have tons of people praying for her, it was great, Carol said kissing Emily on the head.”
Emily is now in what is called Phase 3 of cancer treatment.
“They had three different phases, and she’s in the last part of the maintenance phase,” Carol Buck said. “So, she takes chemo pills every day, and then periodically she’ll go to CHKD for a week, every day for a week, which is part of the treatment.”
At the end of our visit, Emily insisted on going to sweetFrog Premium Frozen Yogurt.
As we parted ways, we wanted Emily to know this: “Here are five things we love about you. You are confident. You are very nice. You’ve had challenges. You’ve overcome them, and you are a total winner.”
Please click here and sign up to join the WAVY Warrior Riders at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Cavalier Golf & Yacht Club. All funds raised support groundbreaking research and clinical trials at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Center.
A big shout out to Onelife Fitness for providing the stationary bikes that pedal us to victory in this years Crush Cancer campaign.
