Cancer threatens Bradenton teen Aubrien Jimenez’s life. Team USA softball goes to bat for her

At 14 years old, Aubrien Jimenez loves people, God, her family and softball.

An active young lady who had already beaten COVID-19, Aubrien is now facing a battle for her life as she lays in an ICU bed at All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. She has been diagnosed with an esthesioneuroblastoma, a cancerous tumor that is extremely rare in children.

Typically, the disease doesn’t develop in someone until after the age of 55. It develops behind the nasal cavity with the potential to quickly and aggressively spread to the brain and lymph nodes.

“We went several times to a local ophthalmologist because her eye was kind of protruding out of her head and they just put her on antibiotics several times,” said Aubrien’s father Mariano Jimenez, who is the director of baseball at Inspiration Academy.

“We took her to her pediatrician who told us immediately to take her to the emergency room at All Children’s Hospital so we did,” he said. “They did a cat scan and found the tumor behind her nasal cavity. It was large so they did an MRI and realized it was growing and aggressive.”

A biopsy was done from there and they discovered the tumor was at stage 4 and beginning to spread.

“It’s crazy,” Jimenez said. “Last Wednesday I was at work serving children in our baseball ministry. Nine days later my daughter is fighting for her life.”

The family’s faith and a pouring out of love from the community and beyond is helping the family and Aubrien stay positive.

Because Aubrien is so active in softball, playing for both Inspiration Academy and with the Palma Sola Softball League, her story somehow made its way to Team USA’s softball team.

The team put together a video in which they express their love and support for the girl and sent it to Aubrien.

Team Italy and Team Canada did the same and then Aubrien got another video from her favorite softball player, LSU infielder Taylor Pleasants.

Pleasants told Aubrien that she can beat this disease.

“She was in tears watching it from her bedside when she got that video,” Jimenez said. “They all said they were praying for her and supporting her and that you can beat this. The support from the Bradenton and softball communities has been huge.”

The family established a gofundme.com page with a goal of $60,000 to help with medical bills. As of Friday, that goal had almost been met. But the Jimenez family ultimately doesn’t know how much it will cost, especially since Aubrien needs to be transferred to Texas All Children’s Hospital.

The Texas facility specializes in the pediatric version of the disease, but Aubrien must remain in Florida until her sodium levels get back to normal and will remain in ICU locally until that is accomplished.

The hospital also will require the family to pay 40% of the estimated cost up front.

“Hopefully we can get her on her plane to Texas by next week,” Jimenez said. “I’m going through all the insurance red tape now but honestly I don’t know what this is going to cost. I’d give my life for my children. My brother set up the gofundme page and it has been amazing, but I don’t know how much we’ll need. Family friends are watching our other children who we haven’t seen in days.

“Your whole life stops when your daughter is in an urgent situation trying to survive,” he said. “We need a miracle.”

Right now the family is living by their favorite Bible verse: “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.”

“Even through this horrible, horrible situation, people have come to us who have never prayed before and say they are getting down on their knees and praying, saying we love you and support you,” Jimenez said. “That is amazing. To see the community rally around this has been a definite bright spot in a terrible, terrible situation.”

Aubrien just completed her first round chemotherapy. Strangers have offered to fly her to Texas in private planes if necessary and families in Texas have reached out to the family to offer them their homes as a place to stay for free.

“It’s been overwhelming for us,” Jimenez said. “It’s been a huge blessing to make sure she gets what she needs.”

If you want to help, visit the gofundme page or Kimber Jimenez’s Facebook page.

This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 1:36 PM.