A Virginia mom who shared the stage with Garth Brooks and beat cancer twice just found out her 3-year-old daughter has cancer.
Danielle Moreland was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma on her 19th birthday. A friend had reached out to country music station K95 with Danielle's story in 2016.
"Leading up to the show, we held a contest for Garth tickets that we called K95 Prizefighter where folks could submit the story of someone they knew that was fighting adversity," K95 radio host Billy D said. "Her friend told us that Danielle had suffered through and beaten Hodgkin lymphoma. During our meet and greet with Garth and Trisha [Yearwood, Brooks' wife], Danielle shared even more that we didn't know; she was actually supposed to try out for 'The Voice' on the day she was diagnosed and never got a chance to sing."
"We went in and we met Garth and Trisha and sat down with him and it was like talking to my neighbors, like parents, so casual, they were the nicest, sweetest people," Moreland said.
Brooks invited her to sing on stage with him at the Richmond Coliseum.
“I told her I will trade places with you in a heartbeat, but not with your parents,” said Brooks.
Eight years later, Moreland is learning firsthand what Brooks was talking about.
In a series of emotional posts this week, she wrote about discovering a lump on her daughter Lily’s neck after she was having recurring fevers.
Moreland and her husband Ben took their daughter to the emergency room, where they confirmed it was a lymph node and they also discovered a mass in her chest.
Further imaging confirmed that she had multiple tumors.
Thursday, she underwent surgery for a biopsy and a port placement.
The family is calling on the community for prayer and support as the singer and survivor has done since her diagnosis by raising money for pediatric cancer patients, never expecting to have one.
"Lily is out of surgery and she did such a good job! My girl is such a fighter," she wrote in a June 27 Facebook post. "We will get an official diagnosis in the next 48 - 72 hours. A port has been placed, and her chemo will start Monday at VCU. I know everyone wants updates - we do too. But until the doctors send off her biopsy results this is all the information I have. I can’t thank you enough for the continued love, prayers, and support. CBS 6 is airing a story on Lily tonight. I’m going to try to keep everyone as updated as I can but my priority right now is my baby."
Danielle and Ben weren’t sure they’d even be able to have children. In a post on social media last March, Danielle wrote of Lily, “You truly are a miracle.” The couple had just had three miscarriages after undergoing in-vitro as they had with Lily.
Danielle has three hearts tattooed on her arm representing the babies she never got to embrace. She wrote, “I’ll hold my Lillianna a little tighter.”
The couple learned last summer that Lily would be an only child.
The parents say Lily is stubborn like her mommy and sweet like her daddy and right now needs a miracle and prayers as she’s in the fight of her life.
Loved ones have established a GoFundMe to "Support Lily’s Fight."
This story was originally published by Laura French at Scripps News Richmond.
