CENTERPORT, NY — An 8-year-old Centerport girl who has battled a rare childhood cancer since she was 3 is facing the disease for a third time after doctors recently discovered a new mass in her abdomen.
Belle Svoboda has undergone chemotherapy, radiation, an amputation and reconstructive surgery during nearly five years of treatment for alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma. After cancer later appeared in her right arm in 2025, doctors recently found a new mass in her abdomen.
Despite everything, Belle's mother, Sara Svoboda, said her daughter is still going to school, spending time with friends and throwing herself into activities ranging from skiing and soccer to swimming, rock climbing and adaptive runway shows.
"You would never in a million years know that she has cancer again," Sara told Patch. "She lives in the moment, so she doesn't dwell on anything."
Belle is now preparing for radiation followed by surgery to remove the abdominal mass. Her family is also seeking additional medical opinions as they weigh what treatment options could remain afterward.
Now seeing her daughter in her third cancer battle, Sara finds that each recurrence has become more frightening rather than more familiar.
"It actually gets scarier," she said. "We're running out of options."
Belle's cancer journey began in 2021 with pain just below her left knee. She told her parents another child may have accidentally kicked her at school. She mentioned the pain intermittently for several weeks before her parents took her to the pediatrician.
A hairline fracture was among the possibilities, Sara said, and Belle was sent to an orthopedist. The family expected she might leave with a boot.
A radiologist reviewing her X-ray saw something concerning and told Belle's father, Mark Svoboda, to take her directly to an emergency room for an MRI. An MRI led to a biopsy. Then came the diagnosis.
"It was very unexpected, clearly," Sara said. "But that's where it began."
Belle underwent chemotherapy and radiation. For roughly nine months, the family believed the treatment had worked.
Then the cancer returned in the same area of her leg.
The family was given about two weeks to decide whether to amputate, Sara said. Belle underwent the procedure in September 2023.
For about 11 months, Belle was in remission. Then she found another lump herself. The lump was in her right forearm, near the site of a previous break. Testing showed the cancer had returned.
Belle underwent another chemotherapy regimen, lost her hair again and needed reconstructive tendon surgery in her hand. She then had to relearn how to use the hand and write, Sara said.
Across the course of her illness, Belle has received three different chemotherapy regimens, undergone multiple rounds of radiation and lost her hair twice.
"It seems to be almost every six to nine months we find something else," Sara said.
This time, the mass is in Belle's abdomen, behind her belly button.
"It's scary because now we're getting more towards the organs, which is never a good thing," she said. "So this one hit pretty hard."
Belle's oncology team currently plans to treat the abdominal mass with radiation before removing it surgically, Sara said. Doctors are not recommending immediately putting her through another chemotherapy regimen because the treatments she has already received have not prevented the cancer from returning.
"I spend my days just basically researching and trying to speak with every person I can to figure out what the next steps are," Sara said. "I'm just very scared. We're just trying to fight for another day."
After Belle's amputation, a connection through Sunrise Children's Camps, which works with children with cancer and their siblings, led the family to Limb Kind, an organization supporting children with limb loss and limb differences.
Jill Smith, who runs Limb Kind's youth group and annual adaptive runway event, said someone from Sunrise reached out to tell her about a young girl who had lost her leg to cancer.
Smith immediately contacted the Svobodas and invited them to a Limb Kind youth group in October—Belle's birthday month.
"She came in with the biggest smile and the most positive attitude, and as did her parents," Smith told Patch. "I was just so amazed at the strength of all of them and their ability to undergo something so tragic, but with such grace."
Smith quickly wanted Belle involved in the adaptive runway event, partly to give the family something joyful to anticipate amid everything else they were experiencing.
"She came out with the biggest smile," Smith said. "She used her walker and did so well when so many other children would be, you know, just not able to form a smile on their face, truly, at that time."
Children with limb loss or limb differences are often the only child who looks like them at school, church, synagogue or elsewhere in their daily lives, she said.
"It's so important for these kids to have a chance to get together and do fun things together, and motivate one another, and to see older teens and young adults living their lives and thriving, and to realize that they can too," Smith said.
Belle has now gone from one of those young children entering the community to someone others look toward.
She has been selected as one of two keynote speakers at an upcoming Limb Kind event at The Paramount. Belle is expected to speak before more than 650 people at the Feb. 6 event.
"There's no one more deserving than her," Smith said. "She is someone we all look up to. That smile never fades."
Belle named her prosthetic "Shiny" and her residual limb "Tiny."
During one of her earliest adaptive runway appearances, she lifted Shiny into the air while walking the runway, creating what her family now calls her "signature move."
Sara said Belle began seeking out even more things to try after her amputation. She plays soccer, skis independently, swims, rock climbs and participates in aerial acrobatics. Belle was so young when she first became sick that many of those interests developed after her amputation.
She has also written a book about her journey and speaks to students about limb loss and limb differences, answering other children's questions about her experience. More recently, she participated in an adaptive runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Sara occasionally asks Belle whether she misses having her leg.
"She says, 'Well, yeah, but then I wouldn't have had Tiny, and I love Tiny — he's my best little friend,'" Sara recalled.
During one stretch of treatment, Belle received chemotherapy every Thursday.
Her classmates in the Harborfield School District created a routine each Thursday where a different group would be waiting when Belle returned home after the treatment, decorated the driveway with chalk, brought balloons and presents and painted rocks that eventually became a garden for her.
"She would literally be throwing up on the way home," Sara said. "We would get home, and then she'd be running in the yard with all the kids that were here."
Another community effort emerged when Belle began losing her hair during treatment. The family wanted to have a wig made using some of Belle's own hair. Local nonprofit Ribbons Rising helped fund it.
Several people with similarly colored hair volunteered to cut and donate theirs. Sara collected hair from friends, mothers, children and her niece and sent it away with Belle's own hair to be incorporated into the wig.
"The uplifting from the community and what they have done for us is just unbelievable," she said.
Courtney Harris, a close friend of the Svoboda family, met Sara after Harris' own daughter, Nora, was diagnosed with cancer in 2022. Sara heard about Nora and reached out to offer support.
The mothers became friends, and their daughters developed a bond through experiences few children their age could understand.
They call each other "soul sisters."
"The Svobodas are some of the kindest people I have ever met," Harris told Patch. "My heart breaks for Belle and them every time she relapses. They deserve so much more."
Years after Sara reached out to support Harris' family, Harris stepped in when the Svobodas needed help.
Sara was laid off earlier this year and said she had been the family's primary breadwinner. With another recurrence bringing more appointments, consultations and expenses, she found herself trying simultaneously to find work and navigate an increasingly complicated medical situation.
Harris started a GoFundMe for the family.
"It feels like it's a huge weight lifted off my shoulders," she said. "I can take a step back from trying to find the job at the moment and just focus on Belle."
The money is expected to help with medical and living expenses, travel, additional medical opinions and testing.
Sara has also launched BelleTheBrave.com as a central site for the family's efforts. In addition to raising support for the Svobodas, she hopes to direct attention toward research into treatments for Belle's cancer.
Long before Belle knew what chemotherapy, radiation or prosthetics were, Sara taught her daughter a chant. Belle was about a year and a half old.
"I am strong," Sara recalled. "I am confident. I am brave. I love me. Girl power."
It eventually appeared on her clothing and became something of a family mantra.
"Who would have known that I taught her that mantra when she was a little year-and-a-half-old girl, and then here we are needing it?" she said.
To learn more about Belle's story, support her family or contribute to research, visit BelleTheBrave.com here or the family's GoFundMe here.
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