by Rachael Kittleson
Kelsey’s Mom
www.KelseysPromise.org
As normal goes, we were a normal family…two daughters, two dogs, a neighborhood full of kids, family dinners, carpools, homework, and messy rooms. Our oldest daughter Kelsey was a great kid. At 14, she was a high honors student, athlete, musician, and volunteer who loved Journey and Queen, The Big Bang Theory and 80’s movies. She made us proud in a million ways and was by all measures a normal teenager. On August 27, 2015, two weeks before her freshman year was to start, doctors would find a tumor the size of an orange in Kelsey’s brain. In an instant we were permanently and irrevocably removed from normal.
Surgery would confirm our worst fear, Kelsey had Glioblastoma Multiforme and she would not survive. For the first year Kelsey went through the standard of treatment protocol for GBM that included both radiation and chemotherapy while enduring the physical and emotional hardships they cause. When Kelsey started to decline in the second year, I met with her social worker to begin discussions on making decisions for Kelsey’s final months. There is nothing in life that can prepare you for that conversation and as unimaginable as it was to learn that Kelsey had brain cancer, having to think through what the end of her life would look like and what we would need to plan for was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. That difficult meeting would, however, give our family a gift that I did not know was an option, but one that I am grateful for every single day.
It is a gift that gives me hope, makes me feel like I have honored Kelsey’s life while giving meaning to what she suffered and lost. It is a gift that makes me feel like we can be part of the solution.
To read the entire post visit our Gift from a Child Blog
