As I told you before my in laws moved in with us for a couple years and my sister in law was sixteen at the time. Sixteen is a hard age for anyone and my sister in law, Ann, had a really difficult situation ahead of her that would change her life forever.
When I first met Ann she was six years old and I use to spend a lot of time with her. She was the youngest of five children and being a lot younger than the other children, three being boys, she needed the attention. I would take her to the beach and to my house to let her play with all my makeup and hair stuff. We became really close, she was my flower girl in my wedding. Ann spent many weekends at my house when we still lived in Maine and she loved helping me with my first daughter after she was born. Ann and I had formed a bond that was very close.
After we moved to Pittsburgh Ann went through some rough times that every teenager does, going out with boys that she shouldn't, not getting such hot grades, and getting into a little bit of trouble with other things. When she moved to Pittsburgh with her parents she was not a very happy camper but we all hoped it would be for the best. It took awhile but she made friends and her and I began to once again form that close bond.
When Ann moved into our house things were pretty good, of course nothing is perfect, but for the most part good. You have to picture there were eight people living under one roof, two families with their different styles of living, thank god we loved each other.
Ann started to get very sick and she had a lot of pain so we took her to the doctors. I can't even begin to make you understand how many doctor and hospital visits we had before we found out what was wrong with her. The doctors had diagnoised her with everything in the book but what she had, they even actually accused her of making it up! Her mother did not drive so I was at every visit with her and after the fifth time of her endlessly being in the hospital I lost it.
Ann was in so much pain and it was like nobody cared or believed her, it had been six months since the initial visit. One of the most important things I have ever done in my life was what I did next, I called Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. We immediately signed her out of the hospital she was in and I brought her to Childrens. Within one day we found out that Ann had Lymphoma cancer in all of her lymphoids. She was immediately treated with chemotherapy and this treatment would go on for years.
After spending some time in Children's Hospital Ann came home and I brought her to all her appointments. Worry is putting lightly what everyone was feeling. It is very hard to be strong and confident when you are looking at a child being so sick but she needed that from us. My children were small and they grew up fast in that way, My oldest daughter wrote a essay for her school on Ann that she won a award for. She was in fifth or sixth grade at the time and I don't believe there was a dry eye in the room. Her mother and father were beside themselves but helped her through everything as did my husband and myself.
The sounds of Ann being sick after her treatments and the first time she screamed when she lost her hair haunt me. I can't tell you how many emergency trips we made to Children's, all I remember is driving like a bat out of hell while her mother cared for her in the back seat. Seventeen and dealing with all this, also being in another state where you don't have those lifetime friends to hold you together. Ann missed many, many days of school that year but the school was great. Ann had a super tutor that came over all the time, she became a close family friend, I remember a group from the school coming to our door and giving her a coat and gift certificate which I thought was very kind. People help, kindness helps, you never forget what people do for you in times like that.
Ann, after years of chemotherapy, was in remission and was told the cancer was gone. She was told that she would never be able to have children and for the first five years would have to be checked regularly.
Today, Ann is around thirty six, she is married with two beautiful children. Ann is proof that miracles can happen, she is proof that if you or someone in your family is going through this or something similar that there can be a happy ending.
