Kathianne
01-03-2013, 11:53 PM
Hankies need to be ready:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-impactful-legacy-of-a-12-year-old-girl-and-the-national-movement-she-sparked-155416307.html
The impactful legacy of a 12-year-old girl and the national movement she sparked
Jessie Rees got into the backseat of her parents' car after another grueling round of chemo and radiation and looked back at the hospital through the window.
She wondered aloud: Why did she get to go home from the hospital? What about the other kids? Why weren't they going home?
...
Jessie loved swimming the most. She was straight out of central casting, with blond hair, blue eyes, lightly tanned skin and the easy Southern California smile. She was a junior Olympic swimmer for the Mission Viejo Nadadores, which is where she could be found doing laps and giggling with friends. Swimming is among the most secluded of sports – you hardly see anyone else and you rarely hear them – but Jessie loved being a teammate. She yelled for her friends as they made their flip turns and made a special effort to see them compete. That's what she was doing in February of 2011 when she started complaining of headaches. Not a big deal, her parents thought, but then she started to develop a lazy eye. She had to go in for a checkup.
Doctors ordered an MRI and the result was unthinkable: Two malignant tumors in her brain stem. The cancer was inoperable. It was incurable. Erik sought "47 second opinions," he says, but every doctor told them the awful truth: there was little hope. At the end of February, Jessie was an up-and-coming swimmer. By the end of March, she was going through chemo with a 1 percent chance to live 18 months. Her parents started telling her about heaven.
Then, on the way home from one treatment one spring day, her parents explained the difference between in-patient and out-patient. And Jessie, who had one more birthday left if she was lucky, thought about the kids who didn't get to go home that day and asked:
"What can we do for them?"
What can we do for them? The question broke her parents' hearts. "She's fighting a battle she can't win," Erik says, choking up over the phone as he recalls that moment, "and she just chose to help others."
...
Read the whole thing!
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-impactful-legacy-of-a-12-year-old-girl-and-the-national-movement-she-sparked-155416307.html
The impactful legacy of a 12-year-old girl and the national movement she sparked
Jessie Rees got into the backseat of her parents' car after another grueling round of chemo and radiation and looked back at the hospital through the window.
She wondered aloud: Why did she get to go home from the hospital? What about the other kids? Why weren't they going home?
...
Jessie loved swimming the most. She was straight out of central casting, with blond hair, blue eyes, lightly tanned skin and the easy Southern California smile. She was a junior Olympic swimmer for the Mission Viejo Nadadores, which is where she could be found doing laps and giggling with friends. Swimming is among the most secluded of sports – you hardly see anyone else and you rarely hear them – but Jessie loved being a teammate. She yelled for her friends as they made their flip turns and made a special effort to see them compete. That's what she was doing in February of 2011 when she started complaining of headaches. Not a big deal, her parents thought, but then she started to develop a lazy eye. She had to go in for a checkup.
Doctors ordered an MRI and the result was unthinkable: Two malignant tumors in her brain stem. The cancer was inoperable. It was incurable. Erik sought "47 second opinions," he says, but every doctor told them the awful truth: there was little hope. At the end of February, Jessie was an up-and-coming swimmer. By the end of March, she was going through chemo with a 1 percent chance to live 18 months. Her parents started telling her about heaven.
Then, on the way home from one treatment one spring day, her parents explained the difference between in-patient and out-patient. And Jessie, who had one more birthday left if she was lucky, thought about the kids who didn't get to go home that day and asked:
"What can we do for them?"
What can we do for them? The question broke her parents' hearts. "She's fighting a battle she can't win," Erik says, choking up over the phone as he recalls that moment, "and she just chose to help others."
...
Read the whole thing!