OPELOUSAS, La. (KLFY)– A mother relived her child’s journey with a tumor to help her best friend navigate her unborn child’s tumor. 

Katelyn Gaspard was 20 weeks pregnant with her son, Sam, when she got the news that he had a mass on his lungs and needed life-saving surgery. 

“I knew that a 20-week anatomy scan is where they found out too,” Gaspard said. “So, I was sitting here, I was like, ‘This is wild that this is happening right now.'”

She was talking about her best friend, Laura Norman. Norman’s daughter Aniston was born with a tumor on her tailbone. 

“This is such a rare thing that I know someone that’s kind of walked the same path,” Gaspard said. “So, I was driving home by myself, and I called Laura. “I remember picking up the phone, and I was like, ‘I’m going to try to tell you this without crying.'”

Gaspard recalled the phone conversation she had with Norman and how she needed the support from a friend.

“I wanted reassurance. I wanted to vent,” Gaspard said. “I wanted to cry a little bit.”

 She got more than that because Norman offered to go with her best friend to the same hospital her daughter, Aniston, was treated at just a few years ago. 

Aniston had the Sacrococcygeal Teratoma removed and was the NICU for over 70 days.

“And if I would have had someone that would have walked a similar road of just being like, ‘This is where we’re going to go,'” Norman said. “If it would take an ounce off of stress of someone, that I can provide that for them, why not do it? For me, it was just a no-brainer,”

Laura Norman brought Gaspard, to see Dr. Sundeep Keswani, Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital. She is the same surgeon who helped her daughter Aniston. When he walked into the first appointment with Katelyn and saw Laura returning, Dr. Keswani said his eyes “lit up.”

“It was great to hear that the experience that she had was so positive that she wanted to share it with one of her friends,” Dr. Keswani said. 

Norman went with Gaspard to appointments for support, recalled how it brought back old memories. 

“I could kind of be the hands and feet of preparing her for what it’s going to be like,” Norman said. 

Sam was only 17 days old when he had open fetal surgery, the youngest and smallest patient to have that procedure. 

“It is the absolute joy to be able to take a baby that, quite frankly, 25 years ago probably wouldn’t be with us today,” Dr. Keswani said. “And to have them have what we will say is a totally normal life. I mean, does it get better than that?”

Now, Sam is healthy and happy enjoying his life like any other child.

“He’s doing great. He’s growing, Gaspard said. “You would never know. You genuinely would never know. I remember the first time I heard him cry after he had all the surgeries and everything. I was like, ‘His lungs really do work.'”

As for Aniston, her mom said, “She is the life of every room she walks into.”

Both friends credit their children’s recovery to Texas Children’s Hospital and their faith. 

“This circumstance is rare, but once you find yourself in the circumstance, you realize how much grit and determination and perseverance you can muster up within you,” Norman said. “And a lot of that is from our faith.”

“You’re stronger than what you think you are,” Gaspard said. “And so we clung to faith and friends through all of this.”

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