Cincinnati Bengals player Devon Still says his daughter's battle against cancer has yielded some good news: she is officially in remission.
Leah Still was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma in June of last year, but doctors told have informed Devon Still she is in remission, he announced on his Instagram account.
"After 296 days of day dreaming about what it would feel like to hear the doctors say my daughter is in remission, I finally know the feeling," he wrote. "Funny thing is there is really no way of describing it because I never knew this feeling existed. When I look at my daughter all I can do is smile and hug her."
Still has been posting updates on his daughter's treatment since her diagnosis, and in a post last week said medical scans showed no signs of "active disease."
The defensive tackle, who is 25, had been cut from the Bengals' roster, but when the team learned of his daughter's diagnosis they re-signed him; he has since been moved to the team's active roster.
Leah Still's treatment, after a cancerous growth was discovered in her abdomen last year, involved surgery followed by chemotherapy.
Neuroblastoma, a common cancer of infancy and childhood, has an incidence of around 650 cases diagnosed yearly in the United States.
It most commonly arises in the adrenal glands, but can also develop in the abdomen, chest, neck or pelvis.
It is one of the few human cancers known to be capable of spontaneously regressing from an undifferentiated malignant state to a completely benign cellular state in some cases.
In his Instagram posting Still thanked Leah's doctors at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Bengals, and the many people who had sent messages of support.
He was proud of his daughter who "kicked cancer's butt," he posted.
"She has made an impact on me and on the world, at the age of four, that I can only wish to make in a lifetime," he wrote.
In December, Leah was able to take part in a ceremony at which the Cincinnati Bengals donated more than $1 million to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital for research into pediatric cancer.
Leah will need further treatment to build up her immune system following the chemotherapy "but I know my little warrior will get through it!" Devon Still posted.
