Bastrop mother, 9-year-old daughter battle cancer at same time

AUSTIN, Texas - Battling cancer is no easy feat, but one Bastrop family has a mother and daughter fighting it at the same time. 

The backstory:

The Goetze family moved to Texas from Minnesota not long ago. About three months after the move, Harlow Goetze, 9, had some mysterious symptoms: her elbow kept swelling and she had high fevers. 

"Everybody was stumped. Then, we got the news that she had leukemia," Missy Heitz-Goetze, her mother, said.

Harlow is in the middle of a two-year treatment process. During her treatment, Missy started getting back pain. 

"We did the scans, and we did find out that I have stage four cancer now. Not the best news," she said.

Missy has already beat breast cancer once and was cancer-free for five years. She started getting radiation again last week. 

"It's hard. It's definitely made us realize how strong of a family we actually are," Andrew Goetze, Harlow's father, said. "There are downtimes, but we bring each other up really well and trust each other."

What you can do:

"The community of Bastrop has all just kind of gathered together to take care of us," Missy said.

The owner of Smoked Loved Barbeque, Thomas Witte, helped with a fundraiser to support the family. His daughter is friends with Harlow. 

"This one obviously hits very close to home for me because of my daughter being the same age, and just all of those emotions attached to all of it. I just wanted to do anything I could," he said. "The reason that we're called Smoked Love is because to me, food is love."

"We couldn't ask for a better community to be a part of during this," Andrew said.

If you want to help out the family, you can donate here: