Sophia Sandoval was 3 years old when she was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a rare and aggressive brain tumor.
She lived in San Antonio, Texas, and in May 2014 spent four hours in the operating room having the tumor removed. Then she began chemotherapy that lasted more than eight months and, for a time, took away her ability to walk. As she received each dose, her mother, Rossio, would tell her that the medicine would give her Wonder Woman or Superwoman powers, the heroines she saw at the hospital.
On January 30, 2015, on her last day of treatment, Sophia put on a Wonder Woman costume, stood on the hospital bed with one arm raised, and held up a handmade sign: “My last day of chemo. It was hard, but I was tougher”.
The photo went viral. Lynda Carter, the actress who portrayed Wonder Woman in the 70s, shared it and wrote: “A little real-life Wonder Woman!”. The image surpassed a million shares and turned that last day of chemotherapy into more than a family celebration: for thousands of people, Sophia became the face of a battle that many children face in silence.