Lori & 94.1 crew,

Thanks for helping Make-A-Wish. You have no idea what it means to the people who have been helped by Make-A-Wish. I don’t attend the Make-A-Wish events anymore… too many memories.

Back in August of 95, my daughter, Stephanie (8 at the time), was diagnosed with ALL, a type of leukemia, and she went through treatment. Since Amarillo didn’t have a children’s cancer specialist here back then, we commuted to Lubbock daily, three times a week or once a week, depending on treatment, for two years. It was a real hard time for my family and especially on my son, Thomas (6 at the time), to understand why he kept getting left with friends while we were in Lubbock.

In November of 95, Make-A-Wish granted her wish to go to Disney World. It has a hard trip for her since she was still taking treatment, but we did it, and I will never be sorry for doing it so soon in her treatment. We took 10 rolls of pictures, which fill a book 4″ thick. Most of the people told us to wait until summer or when her treatments were over, but it was a bad illness and when she was sick you didn’t know when things would change. They told us she had a 95% recovery rate, but in those four months everything about who she was changed.

We managed with me being her nurse fulltime until she finally improved. In September of 96, her central line was infected which caused it to be removed immediately. She did a complete turnaround and was able to go back to school. I started working again, and life went on like nothing had happened. She was finally clear of cancer cells. We only had monthly visits to the doctor just for blood work.

By May of 97, she wasn’t feeling well and had a fever. I immediately rushed her to the specialists in Lubbock to find out she had relapsed. The cancer was back and more aggressive this time. A bone marrow transplant was the only hope if a donor could be found. I immediately left my job again, and we searched for a donor. The odds were not good of finding a perfect 6 out of 6 match, but little did we know Thomas was a perfect match. Thomas wasn’t just a match, but a perfect 6 out of 6 match just like they were twins 2 1/2 years apart. Needless to say, the bone marrow transplant was a great success, but pneumonia set in the same night, and she was gone four weeks later.

I say all this so that you know Make-A-Wish does change lives. We talked many, many times about that trip and how many years it would take for us to save enough money to make another trip when she was better. I used to attend all the Make-A-Wish functions, but in the past few years, they just remind me of what I have lost. Thank you for helping. My daughter was just one of the many children that had a little hope brought into their world of pain. My daughter was only one child, but there are so many that need to see hope when the world of medicine is all they see. Thank you for giving to that cause.

Name Withheld