^^Angel^^ Alexis A. - Quilt Finished in 2007
Born: August 26, 2004 - Passed Away: May 13, 2008
Illness: Medulloblastoma brain tumor, symptomatic seizures
Alexis' Story
Written by Alexis' mom Andrea in August 2006
From birth we knew Alexis was a special child. She was so warm cuddly and always wanted to be held. She would gaze into my eyes as I held her and we fell into love. Watching her grow through her 1st birthday was wonderful, all the special memories we made watching her become such a beautiful child.
Around 17 months old Alexis started to walk a little different. She had problems going to the bathroom and I had her in the doctors office quite often. Within a few weeks she began to vomit at strange times of the night and I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with her, unfortunatly neither could the doctors in our area. On Easter day 2006 it had gotten to the point where Alexis couldn't walk without holding onto something and even when she did she would fall. All Easter day as we celebrated with our family, she sat quitely on our laps. This broke my heart and I just couldn't take it any longer.
We took her back to the emergency room and I demanded something be done to explain what she was going through. Finally they took a CT scan of her brain, and within an hour they came back with the news that would begin a huge change of our lives... Alexis had water around the brain. It wasn't until we got sent to a near by childrens hospital that the specialist saw the tumor, it was a brain tumor they said... I nearly hit the floor, in fact I'm not sure that I didn't.
On May 17th 2006 we were admitted in the ICU unit of children's hospital and we had a Stem cell harvest performed by some wonderful women from the local blood bank, we managed to recover 18 million stem cells that will be frozen and saved for her recovery after chemo therapy! Way to go Alexis. The harvest was quite difficult and hard on her, but she's remained as happy as can be, giggling, dancing and keeping all the nurses coming back for more playtime!
We're now nearing finishing chemo therapy with Alexis, she is on a high dose chemo therapy with a bone marrow transplant shortly after. This has all changed our lives and we will always live life and enjoy each moment for what it is.. precious! Everyday we pray endlessly for a complete and total recovery, we believe God's working for Alexis and healing her every moment of the day!
