SALT LAKE CITY — At 17, Olivia Smart is doing what many teenagers love — playing pickleball, baking cookies and teaching her dog new tricks. But just three years ago, her world looked very different.
At 14, Olivia’s mom, Sarah Smart, noticed something was off.
“She had bruising, and she had black spots in her eyes,” Sarah Smart recalled. “She was on a hike and just felt really faint. I said, ‘You know what? We just need to go and get a checkup.'”
That checkup changed everything.
“The phone call came in an hour after the blood test,” Sarah Smart said. “It was our pediatrician saying, ‘I hate to do it like this, but Olivia has leukemia, and they’re waiting for you at Primary Children’s.'”
A diagnosis that changed everything
The diagnosis was a shock. Olivia had never even had an IV before. Suddenly, she was surrounded by doctors, tests and uncertainty.
“I just started crying,” Olivia said. “There was this nurse who also came in to hook up my fluids to my IV, and saw me going through this terrible time … and she just held me. She told me it would be OK.”
Doctors tried a targeted chemotherapy drug, but it didn’t work. Olivia needed a bone marrow transplant, but no ideal donor could be found.
“You get the diagnosis, and then you’ve got plan A, plan B, plan C,” said her dad, Tony Smart. “Once you start crossing those off, the list gets smaller.”
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A breakthrough treatment — and a new beginning
Olivia became the first patient at Primary Children’s Hospital to undergo a cutting-edge therapy that reduced transplant risks and gave her a real shot at recovery.
Now, more than a year in remission, Olivia is back in school and back to being a teenager.
“Live your life, do what you want to do and not to be scared to do it,” she said.
Her family is forever grateful for the care they received.
“When you’re faced with this life-changing news, the care of the nurses, the doctors — everyone around — it’s hard to put into words,” Sarah Smart said. “It just felt like a big hug.”
Join the KSL Give-A-Thon — June 4
Olivia’s story is one of many made possible by the expert care and compassion at Primary Children’s Hospital. You can help more kids like Olivia by supporting the KSL Give-A-Thon.
The KSL Give-A-Thon is June 4 at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. You can donate now at KSLKIDS.com.
Every dollar helps fund life-saving treatments, research, and support services for children and families across our community.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
