GALT, CA (MPG) - A 2-year-old Galt girl is going to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis for treatment of a rare cancer. 

Eliana Gutierrez – called “tiny but mighty Ellie” by her family – is leaving Sept. 20 and will be there probably until the first or second week of November, her mom Kristyn Gutierrez told The Galt Herald. 

“That’s what the plan is,” said Kristyn Gutierrez, who will be accompanied by Ellie’s grandmother. 

The Gutierrezes moved to Galt in April. Eliana was diagnosed June 24 with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer, which started in her perineal area and has spread to her lungs, her mom said. 

That means the cancer has reached Stage 4, Kristyn Gutierrez said. The cure rate is 50 to 60%, she said. 

Eliana needs proton radiation, a more localized radiation, which she is expected to receive at St. Jude’s, her mom said. 

Kristyn Gutierrez noticed a lump about the size of a dime on her daughter in late March, she said, and began contacting doctors. 

She had a phone call appointment and two in-person appointments. 

“The doctors were kind of brushing me off, telling me to use hot, warm compresses,” Kristyn Gutierrez said. “And I had to see three different doctors, three different visits for them to actually take me seriously and book an ultrasound to get it looked at.” 

The Gutierrezes were taking Eliana to pediatric doctors at Kaiser Permanente in Elk Grove, her mom said. 

One doctor even labeled the lump in the wrong area, Kristyn Gutierrez said. 

Eliana received an ultrasound in May and an MRI in early June, her mom said, adding that’s when doctors confirmed it was a tumor. 

Kristyn Gutierrez’s husband Hunter Gutierrez echoed his wife’s sentiment about the doctors at Kaiser brushing them off. 

But he is grateful, he said, his wife trusted her intuition that something was wrong.

The family’s move to Galt was fortuitous, too, because it allowed them to buy private health insurance and take Eliana to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.

Hunter Gutierrez is an ICU nurse and knows someone who knows a rhabdomyosarcoma specialist at Stanford, his wife said. 

The family was messaging Stanford and Stanford told the family to bring Eliana in. 

Stanford Medicine’s Dr. Raya Saab, a pediatric oncologist, has been amazing, Kristyn Gutierrez said, and is in charge of a clinical trial for Eliana. 

“There was no urgency with Kaiser,” Eliana’s mom said. “I felt very put off.” 

“We take concerns about the care of our patients very seriously,” Kaiser Permanente officials said. “A cancer diagnosis can be deeply upsetting, especially involving a child, and can have a profound impact on the entire family. 

“We are reviewing the concerns that the family has raised and will be in touch directly with them,” the officials said. “Out of respect for their privacy, we will not discuss an individual patient's care.”

Eliana turns 3 years old Oct. 23. 

A fundraiser Aug. 25 at Gilly’s Car Wash & Dog Wash here raised $1,000 for Ellie’s medical expenses, Kristen Gutierrez said. And a GoFundMe page for Ellie had raised $20,040 as of Sept. 11. 

“I just want people to pay attention to their kids,” Kristyn Gutierrez said. “If anything looks unusual or out of place, just trust your gut. Don’t wait, don’t hold off, and sometimes doctors don’t know best.”