LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – She is a miracle baby. Ruby Rae Scott was born December 19, 2023, weighing just 1 pound, 3.6 ounces as her mom was undergoing treatment for cancer. FOX5 first spoke to her mom Aryanna Brewer before Ruby was born last fall about the difficult journey ahead, being pregnant and battling cancer.
Now in a FOX5 update on a story we first shared last fall, we’ve learned Ruby Rae had to be delivered three months early by emergency C-section when doctors could no longer detect a heartbeat in her mother’s womb. Now she is making incredible progress and hopefully after one more surgery, will get to leave the hospital for the first time in her life and head home to Vegas.
“We couldn’t hold her. We could barely touch her. Her little hand would come out and it would barely wrap around our fingertips. It was crazy,” Brewer recounted.
Brewer left Las Vegas to start chemo for leukemia while pregnant, doctors trying to save her life and the life of her unborn child. Brewer spoke to FOX5 from hospital bed at UCLA the day before she started chemo, about three weeks before Ruby was born.
“My bone marrow was 90% cancer,” Brewer shared at that time. Baby Ruby is still in the NICU but now weighs 9lbs, 2 oz. Her biggest issue since she was born, undeveloped lungs and she will continue to need breathing support
“She is going to get a tracheostomy surgery so that way she can come home with us sooner,” Brewer revealed. As for mom, chemo, radiation, and immunotherapy treatments were unsuccessful so doctors in Southern California tried something new.
“What they did is something called CAR T-cell therapy… they do that out here at UCLA… it brought me to remission,” Brewer beamed. Now deemed cancer free, in six to eight weeks Brewer will get a bone marrow transplant also in Southern California. When she returns to Vegas, she is concerned about getting the continuing care she needs for baby and herself.
“That is something that I am a little terrified about…. because as far as what I need for my treatment it wasn’t available,” Brewer explained.
The American Board of Pediatrics says Nevada does not have enough doctors for its children. The state ranks 49th in the nation in the ratio of pediatricians to kids. Right now, there are just 276 serving more than half a million patients under 18. The University of Nevada at Reno says nearly 200 more are needed to meet the national average.
After both Brewer and her baby have overcome so much, she says the day she can finally return home and bring Ruby to Nevada for the first time is the light of the tunnel.
“The day that we are able to finally go home, and I will have all four of my children under the same roof… is going to be the best day for our life,” Brewer contended.
Brewer’s oldest child is still in school in Vegas. The rest of the family is living at Ronald McDonald House in LA for now while mom and Ruby complete treatment.
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