ATLANTA — Dancing is in Autumn Isaac's blood.
The 12-year-old loves to perform on the stage.
But, an incredibly rare vein disorder has sidelined the 6th grader, making it too painful to move.
There is only one place in the Southeast that can help get Autumn back on stage -- the abnormal vein clinic at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
Autumn Isaac wasn't thinking about needles and blood work when they wheeled her back for surgery. she was thinking about dance.
"The floss and the shoot and the whip," she said.
And once this is over, she can get back up on the stage.
"I'm going to the shoot, because you use your legs a lot with that one," she said.
Since she was 3 years old, Autumn has loved dance.
From ballet to hip hop, she thrived on the stage.
But last year, every time she tried to dance, she was in excruciating pain.
"I want her to have her life back. To be able to dance and flip and have fun with her friends," she said.
Her mom, Caneshia, says it's been horrible trying to figure out what was wrong and how to treat it.
12-year-old battles rare disease with help from Atlanta vein clinic
"Anxious, worried, very nervous. This is the third time for us, so I am hoping this will be the last time and my baby can get her life back," she said.
When she was finally referred to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, she was diagnosed with an incredibly rare condition that only affects 1 percent of the population.
"What a venous malformation is, is large, ectatic, or abnormal veins that are proliferating or replicating in a particular area of the body, they get filled up with blood, and they are very painful," said Dr. Anne Gill, a Pediatric Radiologist at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
She said after Autumn's first treatment, it became clear her condition was much more serious.
"It had really turned the corner and evolved into what we call a FAVA. And that stands for Fibro-adipose vascular anomaly. It is a rare, but painful, vascular anomaly in which a significant portion of a muscle in one of a child's limbs is taken over by tough, fibrous, fatty tissue. It not only has the bad veins, it has this fibrous fatty tissue that infiltrates into the muscle," she said.
To fix it, they have to perform a cryoablation ... actually freezing the bad tissue.
"We will place two or three probes, depending on the size of the mass, and we will place them under ultrasound guidance, so I'm watching the entire time as the probe is going into the mass ... turn on the machine, and it freezes the machine, and the probes actually create an ice ball within the tissue and it freezes the tissue to death," said Dr. Gill.
It sounds scary, but Dr. Gill says it's incredibly effective ... and for Autumn, it's music to her ears.
"Sometimes it can be emotional because I really like to dance and I hear my friends talk about it, and I can't do it without having pain," said Autumn.
She hopes now she can get back up on stage ... slowly.
"I'm going to take baby steps, I'm not going to go straight to flipping when it feels better," she said.