POCATELLO — Alyssa Werner will tell you there were signs something was wrong long before anyone gave it a name.

Her daughter Violet Potter had always been a sweaty baby. She must have just been a hot sleeper, Werner figured. But then came the rash — pink and red in color and flat against the skin, almost like measles, which made no sense for a child who was current on every vaccine.

High fevers spiked out of nowhere, reaching upwards of 103 and 104 degrees, that could only be broken by a cold bath or a dose of Benadryl.

For a while, Werner thought it might be cats, or something in the house, or a fabric her daughter wore against her skin.

None of those things turned out to be true. The answer was far worse — and it took months for anyone to find it.

“I don’t even know how we got here,” Werner said.

A face that changed overnight

Last summer, something new started happening to Violet’s eyes. She began blinking hard and often, her eyes watering in ways that seemed like allergies at first, the kind of thing that gets chalked up to the season, treated and forgotten.

But the treatment didn’t work. It got worse.

Doctors initially thought it could be pink eye, then possibly a clogged tear duct and then cellulitis. Antibiotics were prescribed but the swelling kept growing.

By Christmas, it had spread so severely across the left side of Violet’s face that she couldn’t smile, Werner said. The mass had expanded from somewhere deep in her sinus cavity all the way up to her eye, Werner said, adding that the pressure was so great that it had physically pushed her eye upward.

“It looks like a gigantic inverted triangle,” Werner said, describing the shape that stretches from the ear to the bottom of the nose, across the entire right side of her daughter’s face.

Violet’s primary physician, Dr. Yost, made the call. Salt Lake City. Primary Children’s Hospital. Possible sarcoma.

On Jan. 9 — one day after Violet’s sixth birthday — they were admitted.

A diagnosis nobody expected

Two days later, a biopsy confirmed it. Violet had B-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma, a rare form of cancer in children. The tumor, roughly the size of a tangerine, was lodged in a location her doctors described as too risky to surgically remove. There was no cutting it out. The only path forward was medicine.

Violet was placed on a treatment plan centered on vincristine and methotrexate, along with other chemotherapy medications administered through a central line port that was placed quickly — Werner says. Describing the process as a rushed pace that no parent is prepared for. She has undergone multiple lumbar punctures. The family has made multiple week-long stays at Primary Children’s and weekly trips back to Salt Lake every Friday for outpatient treatment.

Cancer comes with an additional layer of uncertainty. The tumor contains inactive cancer cells surrounding it, meaning even as treatment works, the threat of recurrence lingers. The most recent round of lumbar punctures showed limited progress, and Violet was placed on a treatment hold while doctors scheduled a new biopsy to determine whether she’s ready to move to the next phase — a stage called interim maintenance.

Who Violet is

Ask Werner to describe her daughter and the words come fast.

She is the best helper. She takes care of the people around her even when she’s the one who needs taking care of. She makes friends without effort and loves the ones she has completely. She’s a storyteller. She loves art — drawing, painting, making things out of clay. She is, her mother says, a little artist. She also loves singing and dancing, Werner said.

She also wants to be a police officer when she grows up.

“She just takes care of everybody,” Werner said. “If you’re sick, she’ll go and take care of you, even though she’s sick.”

Violet is Werner’s only child. The two are close in the particular way that only children and single mothers can be. Violet’s father has been supportive and involved through the crisis — he and Werner co-parent and make the Salt Lake trips together, his flexible work schedule making the logistics manageable because Werner herself doesn’t have a car of her own. Werner’s mother fills in when needed, though gas in a fuel-hungry vehicle adds up quickly over a 330-mile round trip that crosses state lines.

The family has secured emergency Medicaid to cover Violet’s medical bills directly. The GoFundMe, which has already drawn an outpouring of support that Werner describes as overwhelming, is being used strictly for everything else — the transportation, the incidentals, the costs that don’t show up on a hospital bill but accumulate just the same. Any money left over when this is behind them, Werner said, will go toward Violet’s college fund.

She intends for there to be something left over. She intends for this to be behind them.

“I just feel beyond blessed,” Werner said of those who have contributed. “Very thankful. I’m just overwhelmed.”

Those who wish to support Violet and her family can find the GoFundMe campaign which has garnered about $6,500 of its $8,000 goal from 86 donations as of Wednesday afternoon, on by visiting https://gofund.me/6101cd648.