12-year-old Texas cancer patient using socks to help others
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LUBBOCK, Texas — 12-year-old Abby Martin is battling leukemia, but has used her treatment as a way to help others in the same fight.

Part of her treatment involves a PICC line, a tube inserted in her arm to give her body chemotherapy for 24 hours, 7 days a week. A nurse told her she can cut the toe off of a sock to create a fun PICC line cover.

That’s when she texted her mom about her idea, to make some of these covers for herself, and other patients at the hospital. 

“You can wear it over the PICC lines and then it doesn’t get caught as easily or and you can play more and stuff,” Abby said.

“She texted me and was like hey, mom, let’s do this. And I was like, okay. And so she got it up and ran in on her page. And they just started rolling in,” Elizabeth Martin, Abby’s mom said.

Elizabeth said so far, they’ve received about 800 socks in the mail after posting on Abby’s Facebook page, Abby’s Prayer Army. She also said they have created 250 total PICC line covers. Abby is in charge of cutting off the toe of the sock, and her mom sews the end to make sure it doesn’t fray.

So far, they’ve given them out at an oncology center. Abby will get her PICC line removed Thursday, and plans to give out more covers when she goes.

“We have a bunch of different sizes for all the kids,” Abby said.

This isn’t the first time Abby has done something like this. She did a similar thing by raising band-aid donations, putting them all in a “Boo Boo Book” for other patients to pick out fun bandages.

“It was a fun thing to do at the clinic, to pick out a fun band-aid. There was popcorn and baby shark and octopuses and like a bunch of different fun band-aids,” Abby said.

Her mom is more than proud of all the good she does.

“She’s done a really great job of finding ways to bring joy and it’s fun just to hear it and a lot of people don’t know that she’s the one that’s doing it. And so that’s been a really fun part between the ‘Boo Boo Book’ and the PICC line covers. And then we’ve had googly eyes all over the hospital. And as people find those and they laugh and they don’t know who’s done that. And so it’s just any way that she can bring joy. She’s done a really great job of having those ideas and just dad and I just try to keep up,” Elizabeth said.

Abby and Elizabeth said Abby’s treatment will finish up in July.

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