Peyton Gully is like a lot of 15-year-old girls. A sophomore at Pope High School, she loves competing for the lacrosse and cross country teams and hanging out with her friends, as well as pushing herself hard in the classroom. In early January, her life took a drastic turn when she started noticing severe headaches, joint pain, and extreme fatigue. Within a week, these pains escalated and were accompanied by blurred vision and jaw pain, resulting in a trip to the emergency room at Scottish Rite hospital. The immediate diagnosis was leukemia, which was later identified to be Mixed Phenotype Acute Leukemia, a rare diagnosis that only includes 2-5% of acute leukemia cases.
Peyton has been in the hospital for the past two months getting chemotherapy at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), and will soon be admitted into the CHOA Egleston hospital to receive a bone marrow transplant from her younger sister, Anna. Peyton will be there another three to four months for recovery.
The cost of treating cancer can be overwhelming. To relieve this source of stress and anxiety, friends and family got together to create the “5k for Pey “ fundraiser. All proceeds from the race will benefit Peyton and her family.
The 5k for Pey road race will be held on May 6 at Pope High School, 3001 Hembree Road in Marietta/East Cobb, and kicks off at 8:30am. The road race will include a 5k and a 1 Mile Fun Run. To register, or for more information, visit www.5kforpey.com or email 5kforpey@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared in the April issue of the EAST COBBER magazine, on page 10. Click HERE to access the digital edition.
