HAUPPAGUE, NY — What began as a charity hockey tournament with a $10,000 fundraising goal has quickly grown into a much larger show of support for a Long Island family whose 2-year-old girl is battling an extraordinarily rare form of stage 3 ovarian cancer.

The March 28 and 29 “Hockey for Harper” tournament at Flexible Arena in Hauppauge will bring together adult players, sponsors, and supporters to raise money for Harper, a Merrick toddler whose parents say has already endured multiple surgeries, seven rounds of chemotherapy, more than 50 nights in the hospital, and a recent relapse that sent her back into treatment this week.

Harper was diagnosed at 10 months old after what was first believed to be constipation turned out to be a malignant ovarian tumor, which had already spread to her lymph nodes. Harper’s father, Joe Wentrod, said he first noticed something was wrong when she was still an infant.

“Harper was about 10 months old, and I happened to notice a mass in her abdomen that concerned me very much,” he said to Patch. “We went to urgent care. We went to a pediatrician. They both told us they thought it was constipation, so we tried to treat that, and it didn’t really help.”
After pushing for more answers, the family got an ultrasound in early December 2024.

“The ultrasound showed a large mass in her abdomen,” Joe said. “She went, basically, the next day, straight into emergency surgery to remove it. It was about the size of a softball in her abdomen. It was her ovary. It was an ovarian tumor, a very, extremely, extremely rare ovarian tumor.”

Harper’s parents said they were then confronted with a diagnosis few doctors ever expect to hear in a child so young.

“She’s actually, as far as we know, the youngest example of a patient of this tumor,” Joe said.

Her mother, Melanie Wentrod, recalled the first hours of that discovery as a blur of shock and disbelief. She had taken Harper for what she thought would be a reassuring scan while her husband was away in Cincinnati for work.

“After the scan, the radiologist usually comes to talk to you, but they didn’t come,” she said to Patch. “The technicians came back and said, ‘We got to get you down to the ER right now.’”

Doctors initially thought Harper might have neuroblastoma, a more commonly seen childhood cancer. Then, just before surgery, they realized they were dealing with something else entirely.

“A little bit of disassociating and like, this is not real,” Melanie said of that moment. “Right before her biopsy, the surgeon came in and said, ‘We were wrong, we looked at the scans more, and it’s not neuroblastoma, it’s her ovary.”
The realization carried one kind of fear at first, then quickly gave way to another.

“I was hysterical as someone who had fertility problems, like, oh my God, my child’s going to have fertility issues,” Melanie said. “And then you fast forward, and it’s really scary and sad that your bargaining with God just changed.”

After the first surgery, Harper’s care was moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where it remains today. Her father said she went on to undergo additional surgeries to remove affected lymph nodes and seven rounds of chemotherapy.

The family said follow-up scans in September and October showed questionable findings. More imaging in January showed growth, and a biopsy in early February confirmed the cancer had returned and spread. They applied for an immunotherapy clinical trial at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, but Harper was not accepted. Now, she has begun another grueling round of chemotherapy.

“There’s really just no data on this,” Melanie said. “This specific cancer is typically in adults, but it’s also incredibly rare for adults. And if it is found in adults, it’s usually stage one. It’s usually a female in their 40s or 50s. For Harper to be a female and be 10 months old, and already be at stage three, every aspect of that is pretty much unprecedented.”

Joe said the next immediate step is another round of chemotherapy, followed by scans to see whether the treatment is working. After that, the family and doctors will again be forced to weigh difficult and aggressive options, including possible future clinical trials if any become available. For all of the fear surrounding her diagnosis, Harper remains in good spirits.

“Throughout numerous surgeries, over 50 nights in the hospital, starting when she was 10 months old, so many nights and days stuck in her bed, all of her developmental goals are being hit,” Joe said. “She learned to walk. The way that she speaks at two-years-old is absolutely incredible.”

Melanie, a middle and high school math teacher at a private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, left her job to care for Harper full-time after the diagnosis midway through the school year. Joe, who works at a media and advertising agency in the city, said his employer has been flexible, but he has still found himself trying to hold together work responsibilities from hospital rooms.

“I’ve done everything I can to continue working from hospital rooms, from hospital lobbies and waiting rooms, to miss as little as I could and try to balance an impossible weight on both sides,” Joe said. “We’ve spent every night she’s been in the hospital by her side.”

Harper’s parents are also raising two older daughters, ages 6 and 4, who are navigating the upheaval in the only ways young children can.

“They know she’s sick,” Melanie said. “They knew she had something in her belly that had to come out. They see her scars. They saw her hair loss. They also know that we’re not home a lot.”

Jordan Belous, CEO and founder of Whip Pediatric Cancer, said the first connection she made with the family came in September, when Harper’s family reached out to the nonprofit for a care package.

Belous was two-years-old, her mother was diagnosed at age 35 with a rare pediatric cancer, and treated on the pediatric cancer floor at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Jordan’s history led her into fundraising for the cause as a child and ultimately to founding Whip Pediatric Cancer at age 16. She is now 26 and has been running the nonprofit for more than a decade.

“The story was super interesting to me, and super rare, and I wanted to do something to help more than just sending a care package,” she said.

The desire eventually turned into “Hockey for Harper,” a collaboration between Whip Pediatric Cancer, Flexible IT, Flexible Arena, and the Long Island Hockey League. Belous, who works for Flexible IT, said the company’s community rink gave a way to combine local resources with a direct effort to help.

“Our original goal was to raise $10,000, and we were like, that’s a stretch. That might be hard to hit $10,000,” Belous said. “And in the first five days, we raised it. Then we raised it to 15,000, hit that, 20,000, hit that, 25,000, hit that.”

The tournament will be held March 28 and 29 at Flexible Arena, 290 Motor Parkway in Hauppauge. It is an adult 18-and-over hockey tournament featuring three guaranteed games for each team and an eight-team playoff. Food trucks will also be on site, with a portion of proceeds benefiting Whip Pediatric Cancer. While the original fundraising goal has already been reached, donations are still being accepted both for Harper’s family and for the nonprofit’s wider work supporting families facing pediatric cancer.

Around 12 teams and more than 70 players and goalies are expected. Teams are balanced by skill level, and in a playful touch, each one is named after a chip flavor.

The event may still come too soon physically for Harper to fully enjoy, but the family hopes she may be able to make at least a brief appearance if her condition allows.

“It’s overwhelming,” Melanie said. “You expect nothing, and then people just show up for you in ways that you could never [imagine].”

The family also said sharing Harper’s story publicly may create a possibility.

“Maybe somebody knows something,” Joe said. “ Maybe there’s a doctor who’s working on something that may be a fit for her. We just have to keep hope that there’s some sort of solution out there that we can find.”

Joe said their experience has left him with one message he hopes other parents hear clearly.

“You are your child’s advocate,” he said. “You have to be their eyes and ears and support at all times, and you have to push for answers that you need, no matter what. Even when you’re afraid to find out, you have to ask the questions.”

And for all the uncertainty ahead, the family returns again and again to the same truth: Harper is still Harper — bright, funny, strong-willed, stubborn in the best way, and, somehow, still making her family laugh in the middle of a nightmare.

“All we can do is be by her side, be her advocates, and fight for her every single day,” Joe said.

Link to Original Article: https://933thebreeze.com/every-day-is-a-fight-li-2-year-old-battles-rare-stage-3-cancer-as-hockey-for-harper-rallies-community/