A fighter lives within the petite body of 2-year-old Jade Marr.

Her blonde hair, bright blue eyes and smile don’t reveal a year of chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, surgery and a stem cell transplant she endured to treat Stage IV neuroblastoma.

Surrounded by family portraits on the walls of their dining room, Nicole, 29 and David, 31, shared how they pulled through the tumultuous time together with financial aid from a local nonprofit — Wings Regional Cancer Support.

“She is a fighter, we’ve found out,” Nicole said of Jade. “She is strong, which I think has served her very well. She’s kind of like a sparkle of light in life. She really amazed us with how when she wasn’t just feeling utterly awful, she was just happy.”

“Even on the day kids were supposed to have their worst day after a stem-cell transplant, she’d still get up and color,” David added. 

Jade was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in September 2012. In common cases of neuroblastoma, cancer cells form in adrenal gland, neck, chest or spinal cord tissues.

The diagnosis meant the Marr family, which includes Harley, 11, and Layne 5, would be separated while Jade received treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital. 

Nicole and Jade moved into a Ronald McDonald House in Seattle to be near the hospital. However,  family members discovered they couldn’t be apart for more than two weeks at a time.

David took more than 22 road trips with Harley and Layne to visit their mother and sister in Seattle over a year. Nicole and Jade also made several flights back home that year. Traveling by car could be as much as $300 a trip and by plane $600, but the Marrs needed each other for support.

“Even though it was a sacrifice financially because of missing work, it was really important for us to make sure we had family time,” Nicole said.

While insurance helped with medical expenses, it couldn’t help with travel expenses or days of lost employment. Instead of a two-income family living in one location, the Marrs became a single-income family commuting between two locations.

That’s when Wings stepped in.

The Marrs received $4,000 from Wings to cover travel expenses. Without the financial aid from Wings there would have been fewer trips and less time spent together as a family, David and Nicole said.

On Sept. 26, 2013, during a routine review of tests, Jade’s cancer was declared in remission. Although she and her mother are back home, travel to Seattle is still required once a month for medical appointments. 

“We’re heading to Seattle next week for end-of-treatment scans to see if she is still in remission,” Nicole said. 

Visits to Seattle will continue every three months this year and then every six months for two years Nicole said.

The couple encourages people to make donations and help families like them during the Wings radiothon Thursday and Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Sportsman & Ski Haus in Kalispell. 

“What may be a small donation to you in the midst of your working life could be travel to visit a family member receiving treatment — or getting yourself to treatment if you’re the one going through it,” Nicole said. “It’s such a huge blessing when you’re going through a crisis to just feel other people’s support to be supported by organizations like Wings.”

The Marrs hope their daughter’s future includes remission and no secondary complications from her treatment.

“You know, she’s fought the hardest thing I hope that she’ll ever have to go through,” Nicole said.

 Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at [email protected].