Mary Jo Stavinoha, 7
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
When it came time for Dana Stavinoha to
tell her daughter the terrible news, she just couldn’t say the “C”
word.
Searching for the right words, tone, and
facial expression, she sat 7-year-old Mary Jo down and told her she
was “really sick.”
But her job wasn’t done. She still had to
tell her other children, Sam, 5 and Rachel, 3, what was happening to
their sister. “Mary Jo has bugs in her blood,” she said.
And now the hard part began — fighting
those bugs.
She and her husband, Mark, had to overcome
the initial numbness. After all, they had only gone to the hospital
for some aches her daughter complained of. She never imagined that
acute lymphoblastic leukemia would be the diagnosis.
Immediately the family began to pray for
strength. They became a unit of support and love. Stavinoha recounts
one day when Mary Jo’s brother, Sam, packed bags for an entire week
with intentions of staying at the hospital to take care of his
sister.
Any parent will tell you that this is the
kind of support that is needed because cancer comes with so much.
Since being diagnosed, Mary Jo has been admitted to the hospital for
pneumonia and had a port inserted into her chest for her 2 years
worth of chemotherapy treatments.
But through it all, Mary Jo has not lost
her ability to be a child. Hannah Montana, the lead character of the
popular Disney TV Series Hannah Montana, is a favorite of Mary Jo’s,
along with swimming, ballet and horseback riding.
One of the things Mary Jo likes most about
Texas Children’s Hospital socializing with other children who are
going through the same experience she is. The icing on the cake is
her ability to bring friends from school to play at the hospital
during her treatment.
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