'Something unforgettable': 4-year-old Greer Bailey AUTLIVES cancer

AUBURN, Ala. – If you have ever been around Greer Bailey, you’ve probably seen her cowgirl boots. It doesn’t matter if it’s at school or at church or when the Auburn basketball team comes over to her house. She’s always got her boots on. 

“Greer’s staple is her cowgirl boots,” her mom Kaleigh Bailey said. 

The boots are only fitting for a 4-year-old girl who is described by her parents as “full of spunk, full of life and full of atmosphere.” 

In May 2024, three days before her third birthday, Greer was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). She spent the next nine months in and out of Children’s Hospital doing treatments, and yet never lost that positive spirit. She kept wearing her boots through it all. 

“She wore them all over Children’s Hospital,” Kaleigh said. “People would know. ‘Oh, it’s Greer. She’s got her boots on.’ Even when she felt her worst, people would ask her to do her cartwheels. I think it’s just no matter how bad she feels, she’s still going to muster up the strength to do something and bring a smile to anyone’s face.”

Nearly two years later, Greer still makes monthly trips to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham for lab work and chemotherapy. Though not fully cleared yet, she’s in remission from leukemia and continues to live every day to the fullest. She loves cheerleading, gymnastics and all things Auburn, especially Aubie. 

“It started with the cancer diagnosis, but I told myself, this does not define her,” Kaleigh said. “She can still go and do, and we will continue to go and do whatever she wants to do.”

It was Disney World of all places where Greer’s symptoms first originated. She complained about her stomach, her legs were hurting, and she started having tantrums that she couldn’t control. When they got back, Greer’s parents took her to a doctor. They were at the doctor’s office every week for four weeks, and it was always a different diagnosis. First it was strep throat. Then it was the flu. Then it was an ear infection. 

Finally, on the fourth week, Greer developed a high fever. Her dad, Blake Bailey, took her to an after-hours urgent care where the doctor did a quick assessment and said it looked like textbook leukemia. They were told to go to Children’s Hospital immediately. 

“It’s definitely overwhelming,” Blake said. “We take her in there thinking it's strep or whatever it may be, and he starts feeling on her from the head down. He starts rubbing on her belly a lot, and that's when he just looked at me. He's like, ‘This is leukemia.’ 

“We called Kaleigh, picked her up, we get in the car, and then I remember very clearly – I looked at her and I said, ‘You know he said the L word, right?’’’

Blake and Kaleigh dropped their youngest son, Cooper, off with the neighbors. He was only six months old at the time. And once they got to Children’s Hospital, the staff took Greer’s blood and had a diagnosis within 45 minutes. It was leukemia. 

The family arrived on a Wednesday night. They got admitted to oncology Thursday morning. And on Friday, Greer got her port and started chemotherapy. 

“In the back of my mind, I knew something was wrong,” Blake said. “We knew leading up to it in those four weeks, something wasn't right with Greer. It's shocking to hear the words, but as we said later on that night, we had an answer to something that was going on that we knew deep down in our heart wasn't right.”

“There was relief that we had a diagnosis, and we could just take it by the horns,” added Kaleigh. 

The next steps were not going to be easy for Greer. Spending most of your time at the hospital. Going through chemotherapy. Missing out on life as a typical 3-year-old. Nobody can prepare you for the physical and emotional toll that it can take on you. 

There was the toll it took on the family, too. 

“Not only is it draining mentally, but you're still trying to do somewhat of a day job and take care of a sick kid,” Blake said. “You just don't know what the day is going to bring. There are days I remember getting up at 1 a.m., taking her to Children's, getting an antibiotic for a fever, and then we're back in bed at 4 a.m. to go to work at 6. It’s a lot.”

The hardest part for both Blake and Kaleigh was seeing Greer lose her hair. 

“She had a beautiful blonde bob, and it was the moment I had dreaded the whole time because you know it's coming,” Kaleigh said. “I think when she didn't have hair and she was bald – it was like there was no hiding. She has cancer, she's very sick, and she's 3 years old. Why should she have to be doing this?”

But the Baileys were determined to turn the bad into something good for Greer. It became all about making special memories with their daughter despite the circumstances. 

For her third birthday, Greer’s babysitter dressed up as Elsa from Frozen and came up to the eighth floor at Children’s Hospital to surprise Greer. At the same time, the company Blake worked for in Birmingham surprised the family by hanging a Happy Birthday banner for Greer on one of the buildings they were constructing nearby.

The family also received videos from Aubie and the Auburn cheerleaders. 

“Her being in the hospital bed and watching those videos, she lit up,” Kaleigh said. “It was very special. There’s not much to do in a tiny hospital room. She was neutropenic, so she couldn't go out in the hallways or anything like that just for infection risk. So, anything that we got, any videos – it made her day. We would watch those on replay.”

Then last December, the Auburn men’s basketball team made a special trip to Children’s Hospital where they met Greer. She led the whole area of the hospital in the Bodda Getta cheer, and she got a basketball signed by the whole team that she still plays with today. 

“To a future Auburn cheerleader,” it read. 

“Now that her hair is growing back and it's about to be another cute little blonde bob, that's healing before my eyes,” Kaleigh said. “I think I took a turn when her hair was growing back. I was like, ‘Maybe I can do this. I can take care of her and do this and we're going to beat this.’”

In June, with Greer in the remission phase, the family moved to Auburn. Blake and Kaleigh both graduated from Auburn and had always said they wanted to come back one day to raise kids. Plus, having family close by, it seemed like the right time to make the move. 

Within weeks of moving to The Plains, the Auburn community embraced the Baileys and Greer specifically as she continued her battle against leukemia. 

“The Auburn Family has just loved on us since we got here,” Kaleigh said. “We moved into our house, and within the first two weeks, the neighborhood had decked out their mailboxes with orange and yellow bows for Greer to show her that they're praying for her and thinking about her. The orange means leukemia, and the yellow is for childhood cancer.”

There’s also a special connection between Greer and the Auburn basketball team through AUTLIVE, Auburn basketball’s fight against cancer. 

Last month, one year after meeting the basketball players in the hospital, this year’s Auburn team came over to Greer’s house and surprised her. She led them in cheers, too, and did her own version of Tiger Walk, running through a tunnel of players out her front door. 

The next day, head coach Steven Pearl dropped by and gave her a special hand-written note from Aubie who invited her and her family to attend the Texas A&M game. 

“It’s overwhelming how this horrible diagnosis has turned into something unforgettable,” Kaleigh said. 

“I had heard of AUTLIVE, but I didn’t know much about it. Coach (Steven) Pearl said, ‘More hope, more resources.’ It’s so true. More hope for sure. They have gotten Greer through the toughest time in her life. Mine and Blake’s too. It’s an amazing organization that brings more hope to us and awareness in the community.”

If all goes according to plan, Greer will finish chemotherapy at the end of July. If her blood work comes back clear a month off chemo, she’ll get to ring the bell at Children’s Hospital signifying she’s cancer-free. She might even do a backflip or cartwheel when she’s done. 

But one thing is for certain. Greer will be wearing her cowgirl boots.