Mepham rallies around Gigi

Giuliana Geller, who’s known as Gigi, may be only a year and a half old, but her mother, Jackie — a Mepham High School teacher — said she is already a dancing queen. Not even cancer could slow her, evidenced by her parents’ videos of her moving and grooving in a crib while undergoing chemotherapy several months ago.

Gigi recently took her dance moves to the Mepham High School gym, the site of the annual Chop Your Locks for Charity fundraiser to benefit the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds for childhood cancer research. Mepham students and faculty members were eager to join her in front of the DJ booth and get to know the child who inspired so many to join in the St. Baldrick’s effort.

Jackie, who has taught social studies at Mepham for nine years, said that she and her husband, Chris, welcomed Gigi into the world on Aug. 11, 2012. Less than a year later, the couple found a lump on their daughter’s back that doctors later confirmed was cancerous.

Jackie took a five-month leave of absence from Mepham while Gigi was treated for undifferentiated small round cell sarcoma at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Last September, she underwent successful surgery to remove the tumor, which was attached to one of her back muscles, before chemotherapy began.

Gigi had six rounds of chemotherapy –– six five-day, 10-hour treatments, a number of which caused her to be hospitalized. Jackie noted that her daughter also needed seven blood and five platelet transfusions. Despite it all, Gigi kept the spirits of her parents and fellow patients high.

“She was like the mayor of the floor,” Jackie said. “She would walk into other patients’ rooms while they were getting chemo with a nurse’s ID badge, a stethoscope on her neck and her Minnie doll in her other hand … There were some dark moments where she was very sick, but we just had to keep on reminding ourselves that a few days ago she was smiling and giggling.”