With help from UCLA, teenage cancer patient begins to make strides

The doctors told Allie Newman that the pain in her right thigh was tendonitis, nothing to worry about. A little physical therapy and she'd be as good as new. Just months later, in January 2011, the 16-year-old avid skier and soccer player was diagnosed with an aggressive osteosarcoma in her thigh bone. Her dad, Bob Newman, broke the news to his only daughter as she lay on her bed doing homework, just like she did on any other regular night. Tonight, though, everything would change. "Just a few days before, she was skiing on a family trip and playing soccer, and now I had to sit and explain a cancer diagnosis to her," Newman said. "I ran the gamut of emotions from shock to surprise to disbelief and anger." "I started crying immediately," Allie said.