Rachel's Story

I promised to share Rachel with you.

Rachel was born in the late summer of 1990, at 6 1/2 lbs and about 19 inches long. She was just a beautiful baby. Being a brand new mom, single, living with the baby's father, and never taking lamaze classes, I came through pretty good. Rachel was born breech, meaning she came out butt first. Yup, then the rest of her came out fine. I think I was blessed that she had the perfect shaped head, not a "cone head" most babies were born with (if head first, I mean).

We lived in this really awful slum-apartment but I did pretty good keeping it clean. I had a really hard time being a mom, being new at this, having my own baby to care for. Then when I went back to work, I was happy I had found a wonderful daycare provider (whom I would use for the next 15 years).

My relationship with Rachel's dad was still crazy---the love and hate business I mentioned in my previous blog. We fought, but we also loved. So looking back at that, I'm amazed we even managed to come out of it unscathed.

Finally one day I had enough and moved into a housing the university had for students with families, staff or faculty. I had a nice 2 bedroom townhouse. Around that time, Rachel would have been 2 1/2 years old. I noticed her tummy was swollen so finally I took her in for a checkup. They checked her over and ordered blood tests. And ultrasounds. When they did that, I got the "phone call" at work. My boss at that time sat down with me and helped me with the phone call. Her face went white, and so did I. I nearly passed out. They wanted to bring her in for more testing. I knew that moment it was bad.

My parents and I took Rachel in to the hospital and they ran ultrasounds then scheduled a biopsy. What turned out to be "Wilm's Tumors". It occurs very rarely. If you had asked me back then in 1995, I would be able to sprout off all the facts and the stats. But it's been a long time (13 years now) I wouldn't be able to tell you at this point. Anyway, hers were big like a cantelope and an orange on her kidneys. Wilms is cancer of the kidneys, and happens to young children.

The day of the biopsy, while in the waiting room during the surgery, I found out my grandfather had just passed away. At first my other grandma didn't want to say anything but I needed to know. So I had to call my grandma and tell her I was sorry. And that I would pray for her. It's hard for HER to deal with 2 major things going on, her husband dying and her great-granddaughter undergoing the knife to find out if it's malignant or not.

Malignant.

My world fell apart. So we spent a year and a half fighting the battle. We spent 3/4th of our time IN the hospital than at home. I have forgotten what the outdoors looked like. The breaks I took from her room, her chemotherapy treatments, her everything, I would step outside but never really looked at the skies or the trees or anything. I was doing what a mom should do, spend time with her daughter and help her recover. My whole family were involved in taking turns spending time with her. My stepsister even spent a lot of time with her (we became good friends as we got older---unlike the snooty girl she used to be in our younger days). Rachel made friends with every single doctor and nurse on her floor. It's just amazing. I have even met the governor! His niece was Rachel's roommate, and I had NO CLUE that her mom is the sister of our Governor! I thought his wife looked so familiar, with the gap in her front teeth and pregnant (I believe she had twins OR triplets...maybe someone can help me remember Gov'ner John Engler and his wife?). Amazing. I wondered why so many people in the hall were peeking into our room. OHHHHHH!

Anyhoo, Rachel had 2 different aggressive cycles of chemotherapy and they didn't work. Finally they contacted Make A Wish Foundation and Rachel wanted to go to Disney World with Mom and Dad.

So off we went, and visited Disney World, and Sea World, and we had a great time. We visited St. Petersburg and saw the beautiful ocean. Took lots of pictures and videotaped her in a Belle gown she bought from Disney World. She was in a great place.

Came home. More chemo. Finally they said, it wasn't working.

My world fell apart.

Anything else we want to do?

Visit relatives in Arizona. So we flew off. And then after a day, Rachel turned for worse, and we had to fly back home.

Flying home on Southwest, I have never met so many wonderful, caring people who streamed in/out. Majority of them offered their prayers. Some asked for our addresses. Some just wanted to say hi to Rachel.

Got home. Met with the team of nurses and doctors. They all asked me the question. I told them, Rachel said time to stop. She knows what will happen if we stop treatment. She's tired. She's had enough. The doctors cried. The nurses cried. I cried. My parents cried.

Took Rachel home...few days later, she passed away peacefully in my arms.

She was born August 10, 1990 and passed away Feb. 9th, 1995.

Once she asked my dad one day as they snuggled up for quiet time, "Opa, what will happen to the world when I die?"

My dad answered, "Well, there is a time to be born. There is a time to die. But the world will go on as always."

She was a social butterfly. She has touched so many people in her life. Her heart was bigger than one would think. She loved life. And butterflies were one of her favorite things.

Whenever I see butterflies, I think of her. After her death, I reminded myself to always enjoy the outdoors, not to forget to really look at nature, the skies, the clouds, the sun. You never know when you'll see it again.