Girl From Viral Photo Dies of Aggressive Brain Cancer DIPG
Shortly after a photo of her with her grandfather brought tears to everyone's eyes, a five-year-old Florida girl who had an aggressive brain cancer died Jan. 15.
"Our sweet Braylynn, our warrior princess, earned her sparkly pink angel wings this evening," according to a Facebook post from Braylynn's Battalion, a page started to keep family, friends and anyone else up to date with Braylynn Lawhon's fight against diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG.
In the U.S., about 300 children receive a DIPG diagnosis every year, and are typically diagnosed between ages 5 and 9. DIPG cases make up 10 percent of central nervous system tumors in children.
"Her nickname was Princess Bel and she could light up any room," the Facebook post continued. "She loved Hello Kitty and her birthday was December 10. She was a princess with the strength of a warrior and she will NEVER be forgotten. We need this cruel disease called DIPG to stop taking our children away from us!" She had been in hospice starting Jan. 6, according to an earlier Facebook post on the page.
The viral photo -- posted Jan. 7 -- has received more than 12,000 reactions and nearly 5,000 shares as of Wednesday morning.
"I had no intention of that picture getting as far as it did," Ally Parker, Braylynn's mother, told Today. "I had taken it just to capture a memory -- to remind myself that this was real and it was happening."
Parker also said that her own father isn't doing well health-wise, and has both amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and a precancerous myeloma.
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David Oliver is a social media associate editor at U.S. News & World Report. Follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, or send him an email at doliver@usnews.com.
