One day, six-year-old Keira Vidikan developed a minor headache just before heading off to her ballet class in Dayton, Ohio. Less than two weeks later, she was in a coma at the Cleveland Clinic, nearly paralyzed and unable to speak.

“I think this was the darkest night we will ever have,” says her mother, Michelle Vidikan.

After scanning Keira’s brain, emergency room doctors suspected a glioma — an aggressive form of brain cancer. As Vidikan and her husband, Mario, waited out the night at the local hospital.

But the next morning, after six hours of tests, there came a ray of hope: an MRI showed the mass was more vascular in nature. Keira was referred to the Cleveland Clinic for an evaluation. For more information, click here to read the full release.