Today, August 3rd has so many memories as posted on Facebook.
August 3, 2012 -
Today is the first day of my second trimester ~yea~- This morning Bryanna gently placed her hand on my belly and said: "Mommy, your belly is getting soo big". ;)
Bryanna was 6 years old, Evey would have been 4 and Liam was in my belly.
August 3, 2014-
"Spending a day at the zoo with my favorite peeps was the perfect pick me up."
August 3, 2016 -
What I thought was the worst day of my life...
A post from my sister:
"My sister asked me to post and request a prayer warrior group. Her oldest daughter was diagnosed with acute leukemia today and they are wanting all the prayers possible. They are gonna be staying at Childrens National Hospital for several weeks as she begins her treatment tomorrow. This is gonna be a long road for Bryanna and Kristena but we got your back... and the prognosis is high for peds leukemia..."
~3 weeks after Bryanna's 9th birtday - Evey was going into first grade...Liam was only 3.
Statistics say that the prognosis for Pediatric Cancer is high - Each year, more research is conducted, more clinical trials are created, more children are being cured. And yet, more children still are diagnosed with cancer. More children are still dying.
August 3, 2016 - After a very long day, Bryanna's IV was hurting her hand. I asked someone if they could help her with that - it turned out to be a doctor who was happy to do it himself. I never left Bryanna alone. Ever. At that exact moment, Bryanna's lead doctor asked me to go with them to a conference room. I asked them if we could wait until after they fixed her IV. They asked me if we could go then. Until this time, I had never left Bryanna. Yet, I left her side because I knew this was bad. We walked into the room - the doctor shut the door. Two doctors sat across from me, the other doctor sat next to me. She took my hand and she said "Bryanna has Leukemia". I felt every feeling in that moment - I was suddenly unable to breathe, I felt like my heart could stop any moment and I felt like I could see all of this from above - I did everything to not pass out. I cried, I shook, I tried not to throw up. The doctors realized at this point that I had not eaten that day and it was already after 5pm. One of them ran and got me food, though I didn't eat it. Then, I dusted myself off and I asked tough questions. What we knew was that Leukemia was very serious but prognosis has improved drastically for patients like Bryanna. Yet it didn't.
After I could breathe, we called Mike together because he had just left to let his dogs out. He learned about her diagnosis over the phone while driving. There is no good time to learn about Cancer. That night, I called my family, and Mike called his. We didn't know what the next day, hour or minute held but we knew we had to fight. We have to fight until every single cancer cell was out of our baby. Until we couldn't. Less than three months later, she died. Statistics didn't matter to us, because every news we got was worse than the one before. We went from 80% survival rate, to 70% survival and then with the final diagnosis of ETP-ALL we were told she had a 30% survival rate. Damn the statistics - my baby was not a statistic. These children are not statistics.
Science may say that Bryanna is a statistic. Society may say she was a statistic. But we know that Bryanna was a beautiful little girl that LOVED to sing. She loved making videos with my phone without me knowing. She loved Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Her favorite song in the entire world was Fireworks. She loved to sing and she let the world know that! She loved glitter...Oh she loved glitter. She loved gold, silver, pink, blue, purple and every other color in the rainbow. Elsa was her character of choice and she made Evey and Liam dress up as Anna and Olaf and created "live shows" for me to watch. Bryanna loved stuffed animals and real animals - and I mean REALLY LOVED ANIMALS. She connected with them. With horses, cats, birds, dogs...she had a special connection with any animal she came in contact with. Bryanna cried with me when the shelter dog commercials came on. She had compassion and empathy. She didn't really like popcorn much but she certainly loved sour patch kids. She loved to tease me and say they were sweet and laugh when I was "suprised" that they were sour. Bryanna loved to go to bed with Evey and Liam, have our story time and then come out and have an ice cream date with me after they went to sleep. During that time, Bryanna would tell me whatever was on her mind while we shared a tiny container of icecream. Two spoons, 1 container and lots of love. 10 minutes. That's all it took - 10 minutes of pure joy and love and ice cream. Bryanna was a damn good fighter. Bryanna knew she was dying yet she took it all on with grace. With all the extrodinary pain that she endured every single second of the day, despite all the meds to mitigate it, and despite the fear when the lights went off - she dealt with it all better than I could have ever have. Bryanna is my hero - she is someone that I admire, respect, love and look up to. She is someone that is the role model that I had hoped to be to her. She saw the good in the bad, and the beauty in the ugly. If folks would see the world like she did, it would be a much better place.
Tell me, does that sound like a statistic to you? When parents are sat down and they are told the survival rate - those kids that are grouped into the fatal group and the survivor group become a statistc. Sure - that's necessary for gauging the progress and scientific advances. But in all those advances, society forgets what these statistics mean -
They mean Bryanna who was diagnosed 3 weeks after her 9th birthday and died on October 24, 2016 and who would have been 12 as of last month. They mean Micky who died only 2 short weeks after his 12th birtday on April 13, 2019. They mean Siona who was diagnosed at 4 years old and passed away in 2011. These kids had ETP-ALL. These kids make up the 30%...that 30% that we were told would never be our kid.
Today, 3 years ago was the day that we were told that Bryanna had Leukemia. It was the worst day of my life - or so I thought.
Today as I was driving, a car pulled in front of me with the license plate that said "BR3TH3" with a butterfly next to it. Today, Bryanna has shown herself to me in so many ways...to my family. To my friends.
Three years ago today I held my baby as she slept knowing that we had to get through this, we would get through this and we would have hope.
Today, three years later - I ache to hold my baby, I ache to hear her voice, to feel her touch, to smell her. But I still have hope. Today - three years from now - I will still have that ache, but I hope that her love will still be as strong in my heart as it was then.
Three years ago today, my world was forever changed.
Three years ago today my heart shattered - but my love stayed strong.
I miss you so much Bryanna. Forever and Always baby girl. Forever and Always.
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