Avery's Battle with Cancer!

Background music is Avery singing You Are My Sunshine!


On January 12, 1999, my little angel, Avery Makenna Rose Williams was born. A few hours after she was born, I noticed a small lump on her back, right beside her lower spine. I asked the doctors about it and they did an x-ray and an ultrasound to try to determine what it was. They didn't know what it was and couldn't determine if it was attached to her spine so they sent us to Children's hospital the very next day to see a neurosurgeon. At Children's, they decided to wait until she was older to do a CAT scan, so she would be bigger and it would be easier to tell what is was. They thought it was probably just a lipoma(fatty tumor)and nothing to be concerned about. When she was four months old we took her back for a CAT scan. We went home to wait for the results. They called us a couple of days later and told us that they had seen something unusual and needed a closer look. So they scheduled her for an MRI. After the MRI, the neurosurgeons told us that it was not attatched to the spine and that we would be referred to a general surgeon who would probably just want to watch it to see if it grew or caused problems. They were still convinced that it was a fatty tumor. The general surgeon decided to remove it because he had no idea what it was. I thank God every day that he chose to remove it. Had he not, Avery might not be here today. Surgery was scheduled. When we arrived for surgery, Avery was a little congested. They did not want to risk putting her under while she was congested if it wasn't an emergency, we scheduled her surgery for the following month. After the surgery,the doctor came in and told us that the reason the surgery had lasted so long was that the tumor had almost doubled in size but that they got it all and she was fine. He said he was going to send it to the lab to have them check it out and not to worry, it was probably nothing. We took our little angel home so happy that this ordeal was finally over. When we got home Avery,who had always been an extremely cranky baby, was laughing and playing and even stood up on her own for the first time only hours after surgery. Her daddy and I decided that the tumor had to be pressing on something and causing her pain. She was a completely different baby. About four days later, her doctor called and Shane answered the call. I knew instantly what was going on. Shane kept saying "yes.......yes...." Then he asked the doctor if he could tell me. I looked at Shane and said, "It's cancer, isn't it." Shane didn't respond. I took the phone and listened to the doctor tell me that they had found something and we needed to bring her to the hospital the next day. He said to plan on staying for awhile. I asked him if it was cancer and he said that it would be better if we came in to talk about that. I hung up the phone and went numb. I really think that was also a blessing from God, too. I do not know how I would have made it through the next few weeks, months if I let it all set in. Shane was really upset. He was yelling, "No,no. This can't be happening." I told him he needed to settle down because he was scaring the boys. He went outside and I started calling the family and trying to find a babysitter for the boys. All the family kept asking me if he said specifically it was cancer and I would say, "No, he wouldn't answer me. He said we would talk about it tomorrow." And they would say maybe it isn't cancer. I would tell them I knew it was. I think no one was prepared to hear that news. They just had to hold on to every ounce of hope that was left. The next day, we were back at the hospital. Sitting in the same room we were in just a few days before. But that day was very different. We waited for about an hour for the general surgeon to come in. He had emergency surgery and was taking forever to get there. Then a doctor came in and introduced himself. His name was Dr. Becton(the best Doc in the whole wide world according to us!). He started telling us that Avery would have to have an IV put in and tests ran on her for a couple of days. And in the morning they would do surgery to put a port in so they wouldn't have to keep putting IVs in and so that she could get her chemo. I stopped him then and said, "So, she has cancer?" He had no idea that no one had told us for sure yet. He spent the next hour explaining to me what type of cancer she had and what they were planning for her treatment and tons of more stuff. He was so wonderful. He wrote everything down for me so I could take it out to the waiting room where her Nana and great-grandmother and aunts were waiting impatiently. It was final. My little angel was diagnosed with a primitive neuroectodermal tumor.

From that day, our world changed completely. We were sent to start our first series of numerous scans to find out if and how far the cancer had spread. That day she had an MRI and CT scan. Then we were allowed to leave only to return the next morning to finish up the tests. I will never forget that night. It was one of the longest nights of my life. We stayed at a motel because we lived over two hours from the hospital. I stayed up all night. I could not sleep knowing that the next day we would find out if our only daughter was dying or not. At about one in the morning I called one of my closest friends to tell her what was going on. She really couldn't believe it. We talked for awhile and that helped me get through night. I don't think it had set in yet what was going on. I was so calm and together. On the inside, I was just numb. The next morning, she had her surgery, spinal tap, bone scan and eventually an ultrasound. They had found something on her liver and wanted to double check it. It turned out to be only a cyst. And we were relieved to hear that all of her other tests were clear. The cancer had not spread. That was such a relief. We were admitted in the hospital to start chemo that same night. The next few days are such a blur. Doctors, nurses, family, and friends were in and out. We recieved so much info about the drugs she was on I thought I would go crazy. The nurses told me not to worry that I would eventually know them all by heart. (They were right.) The first night went great. The second, we weren't so lucky. I had walked my mom downstairs to leave and when I came back up, Avery looked like she was about to die. She had started throwing up and the nurses gave her some meds for nausea that made her just sit there completely still and stare at the wall. At first I didn't like how it effected her but you learn to adjust when your child is throwing up all night and that medicine instantly stops it and allows her to get some rest. We finished her chemo at the hospital and was sent home. We had to give her a shot every day for the next twelve days.At first home health gave them to her and then Shane and I decided to give them to her. Do you have any idea how hard it is to stick your six-month-old baby? Home health came by once a week for the next two weeks to give her chemo at home and we had to go in to the doctor's office to get her counts at least twice a week. Then, four weeks after her last cycle started, return to the hospital and begin the process again. The next few months were about the same. She weighed 18 pounds when she was diagnosed and she stayed anywhere from 17-19 pounds through the entire course of her chemo treatments. That is good considering that she would not eat a bite or drink hardly anything from the time she started the chemo each month until she had been home for a day or so(about five days). But it is hard to see a baby not gain a pound for over six months. They usually grow really fast! Right after she had started her third cycle of chemo, we landed back in the hospital. I expected this. The docs had told us to plan on spending a lot of time in the hospital from things like little viruses going around and stuff like that. Little Avery had done so well up to this point and I was starting to think that this chemo thing was nothing. Boy, was I wrong. We ended up in the hospital for almost the entire month. We had blood transfussions (thanks Shawn for all the blood!)and platelet transfussions until her counts were up high enough to go home. And believe me, we were ready. It's not easy to keep a baby couped up in a little hospital room and because her counts were so low that she could not leave her room. We got to go home and spend a few days with our boys before we returned to the hospital for her next dose of chemo which lasted four days. And wouldn't you know it, we landed right back in the there with another infection. This time we only had to stay about a week. But that was plenty.

We finished her treatments in early December. We go back to the hospital every month now for a scan to see if the cancer has returned and to get her port flushed and things like that.How we made I will never know. I just kept saying,"We will be done by Christmas." And thank God we were. It was hard to watch her and other kids go through all the stuff that they had to endure. It was hard to deal with the fact that another child was right down the hall dying with the same disease your daughter has. It was hard to explain to the boys that mommy and daddy had to leave them again to take sissy to the doctor. It was hard watch our daughter's hair fall out. It was hard and still is hard to deal with how different people react when they found out our daughter has cancer. It was hard not to get upset when people who didn't know she had cancer made comments about her hair. It is hard to explain to everyone that we meet that she isn't a boy and that she has cancer and that is why she looks like she has a buzz cut. It's hard to go every month for her scans and wait with that sick feeling until you find out if the cancer has returned. It's hard living with the fear that one day we will have to repeat the past year or worse, watch our daughter slowly die. It was a rough year but it was worth it. Our family has fought this battle together and we are now closer than ever. Best of all, I have my precious lttle angel sitting right here beside me now trying to help mommy type.



Please take this dove and post it on your site, To Show Support for ~Cancer Victims~ and their families.........................