Remembering Their Angel

Laughter and a few tears filled the lives of a rural Nelson, Wis., family in November last year.

Ashley Brommer cried because of the ankle she had broken a few days before her second birthday on Nov. 8, 2000. As the family’s doctor put a tiny cast on her foot, he sang “Happy Birthday” to Ashley, whose family celebrated her birthday with laughter and a party.

Much has changed in the past year, but laughter and tears still fill the lives of Ashley’s parents, Bobbi and Dave Brommer, and her sisters, Stephanie and Courtney. Ashley, who would have turned 3 on Thursday, died Oct. 22, at her home after and eight-month battle with leukemia.

“She was such an active little almost-3-year-old,” said Bobbie Brommer, an inventory planner at Valley Craft in Lake City, Minn. “She’d never stayed in her high chair; always wanted to be up on the ‘big girl chairs.’ That’s how she broke her ankle.”

But other than the small fracture, Ashley was the picture of health on her second birthday.

Dave Brommer, a machinist at Federal Mogul in Lake City, Minn., said he would have never guessed that “Ash,” his bright, youngest daughter, would not be here to celebrate her third birthday. The family learned of her illness Feb. 13.

“She was so smart for her age” Bobbi Brommer said. “She knew all of her ABC’s and could count to 20 by the time she was 2.”

The news of her illness hit hard, and it all began with bruises.

One weekend, Ashley was playing with her new beagle, Duncan, when she slipped and bumped her head. The next morning, her eyes was swollen shut, and the side of her face was “just black,” her mom said.

Blood tests revealed extremely low blood platelet and hemoglobin levels. Ashley was admitted immediately to a hospital in Rochester for a bone marrow biopsy. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, the adult form of the cancer, which is extremely rare in children.

“That first week was the hardest,” Dave Brommer said. “We didn’t know what it was.”

Ashley started chemotherapy immediately. The point of the treatment was to make her “neutropoenic,” or to decrease her white-blood cell level to below 500.

“She liked to say that word,” Bobbi Brommer said. “She knew it meant she had to stay in her room. She knew because she couldn’t go to the playroom until she was no longer ‘nootropenic.’”

In all Ashley would under-go three chemo treatments, as well as a stem-cell transplant, donated by her mom. The third round of chemo was extremely hard.

“They gave the strongest possible dose humanly possible for a person of her age and weight,” Bobbi Brommer said. “The chemo could have killed her. But she made it through chemo alright. The leukemia was just too strong.”

Living with leukemia is never easy. Ashley’s family constantly made the 56-mile trip to Rochester. Bobbi Brommer recalls spending the better part of the eight months in the hospital with her daughter. Ashley’s sisters, Stephanie, 9, and Courtney, 6, came to visit about twice a week.

The Brommers estimate that the first hospital stay was eight weeks, then out for two, back for three, and on and on. The brave little girl always made everyone smile.

“We always felt a whole lot better when we left (the hospital) than when we had arrived,” Dave Brommer said. “She gave us quite a lift.”

Everyone seems to remember Ashley as the little leukemia patient who didn’t let her disease drag her down. She always was joking, and she always wanted to play. More than 400 cards and 44 flower arrangements at her funeral attest to the impression she left on everyone she met.

The family found out in early September that nothing more could be done for the little girl.

“We had such a positive attitude through the whole thing, we totally didn’t expect it to end this way,” her mother said. “As hard as she fought you’d think she would fight it off. She had so much love for life.”

Said Dave Brommer: “The doctors kept saying, ‘Look at her. She’s healthy except for the leukemia.’”

More than one person has referred to Ashley as an angel.

“She used to bring me tissues when I would cry,” Bobbi Brommer said, her voice a bit shaky. “She’d say every time it happened, ‘It’s OK. It will be OK.’”

Ashley’s sisters especially enjoy recalling their favorite memories. Their little sister loved angels and frogs and butterflies and ladybugs.

“She didn’t like bees,” Courtney said.

“Ever since she was stung by one,” Stephanie added.

Stephanie said their sister liked the outdoors, and she loved her dolls.

Ashley also was very particular about her milk. She was on a calorie count for a while, her mom said. “And so it was everything whole milk and more calories while she had her tube.”

She wouldn’t even drink 2 percent, and heaven help anyone around her who did. The family remembers a time in the hospital cafeteria when Ashley said in her bold little voice: “That purple lady’s (a woman wearing purple who was sitting in the other side of the room) drinking 2 percent. I don’t like 2 percent. My babies don’t like 2 percent either.”

The Brommers all laugh at the memory.

It is good to have the memories, the family agrees, holding a recent family portrait taken this fall. Thursday the Brommers remembered Ashley in their own, quiet way. Bobbi Brommer took a bunch of balloons and some fresh flowers to her daughter’s grave.

While her husband quietly thumbed through a two inch stack of Ashley pictures, reflecting on his beloved daughter, Bobbi Brommer said: “She was absolutely amazing. She taught us about support and compassion and never giving up. She was our little angel."

http://www.winonadailynews.com/rednews/2001/11/11/build/news/4.php