Sad, Sad News

My heart has been ripped out twice over the past month.

June 6th was the worst. My beautiful granddtr., Abigail Elizabeth Ferenz, 2 yrs. old passed away from a very, very vicious and aggressive brain tumor. She was diagnosed with the tumor on Sun., May 27th, biopsy done on the 28th and sent home. She was showing no signs that anything was wrong. It was discovered quite by accident. She bumped her head and started throwing up a few days later (26th), so took her in to rule out concussion, but said she was okay, but had a malformed skull. CT revealed a osteomas on inside of skull pushing on her brain. They transferred her to VCU Children's Hospital PICU. MRI next day revealed mass with bone in it. Biopsy done on Monday and she was sent home on Wed. to await results. Appt. set for June 5th to go over results. However, on Sun., June 3rd she started throwing up again and by time ambulance got her to hospital she was having mini seizures that got worse. They again transferred her to VCU. MRI revealed tumor was bleeding into brain adding more pressure. Meds basically put her into a medically induced deep sleep.  Working diagnosis from biopsy was Ewing's Sarcoma. They operated on Monday to remove the pressure and also ended up removing the affected part of her skull, dura and went ahead and removed as much of the tumor as they could for then. MRI on Tues. revealed extensive brain injury due to lack of oxygen to parts of her brain from the pressure. Wed. morning she made a turn for the worse and that evening we let her go. Her parents,Jacob & Karli; big sister, Bonnye and both sets of grandparents and Aunt Breezi (Karli's sister) and her boyfriend, John were with her at the end. The staff took us out to the Pediatric Garden and let them hold her and she passed quickly and peacefully in her mom and dad's arms. Our world caved in at that moment.

Friends and family came and gave their love and support via mail, food, visits, etc Her memorial was held on June 14th. We will be grieving for a long time.

Then, on July 2nd my BIL, David passed away. We knew he was declining (Stage 4 small cell bladder cancer, diagnosed early in 2017), but we thought we had months before he left us. His memorial will be on the 21st, so we will be travelling to TX for that.

Oops, sorry for the neglect!

Wow, have I really not been on here since Dec. 2016. Thought for sure I had posted since then. Well, I will try to do better. Unfortunately, my next post will be a double sad one. Hopefully, things will improve after that.

I will try to update with some of the past family events later. Add some of the happy times.