Four-Year-Old Gets Mastectomy: Aleisha Hunter's Amazing Survival Story

(CBS) You don't meet many breast cancer survivors who are still in preschool. But Aleisha Hunter, a 4-year-old from Ontario, Canada, is one brave kid.

According to the Globe and Mail, last year Aleisha's mom, Melanie Hunter, noticed a small lump on the left side of her daughter's chest and immediately took her to the doctor. At first it didn't sound so bad. Lymphatic inflammation, the doctor said, which is a bacterial infection of the lymph nodes. But the lump grew and turned purple and her appetite diminished, according to the paper. She got a second opinion and this one was terrifying - juvenile secretory breast carcinoma - an extremely rare cancer where tumors leak fluids.

"It was a shock," Melanie told the Chronicle Herald. "It was scary. I had to sit down."

The solution was just as horrifying - a double mastectomy for her 4-year-old daughter. That meant full removal of her breast tissue, nipples and lymph nodes under her arms.

"They cut my booby off," Aleisha told the Chronicle Herald. "It was growing so big."

It's one of the earliest mastectomy's in the medical literature, certainly the earliest in Canada.

Thankfully, the epilogue is a happy one for now. Little Aleish is cancer free, according to the Chronicle Herald, and her mother said neither chemotherapy nor radiation was needed. When she gets older, doctors will be able to rebuild her breasts.

Want to hear more of Aleisha's inspiring story, read the Globe and Mail and Chronice Herald.