Alissa was the youngest of 4 girls but she was always the leader & the center of attention. She was happy, outgoing, funny, and always had a smile on her face. When Alissa was 11 years old she sprained her ankle while running, something so minor but it seemed like it all went downhill from there. Suddenly she was very tired all the time, she lost her appetite and as a result lost quite a bit of weight in a short period of time. That was when we asked for blood work to be done, we thought that maybe she was anemic.
On April 11th, 2001 Alissa was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). I wish we could say that she had no idea what that was, or what this meant for her but she knew all too well. A year before Alissa was diagnosed, her older cousin Laura was diagnosed with Acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Alissa visited Laura frequently at the hospital and was very much aware of what Leukemia was. Although she was scared, she comforted all of us and told us that she had faith, she knew she could fight this... and she did, until the very end.
After a year of chemo therapy, Alissa went into remission. She went back to school, and loved every minute of it. She even attended her first school dance. After 6 months in remission, Alissa relapsed and we were told a Bone Marrow Transplant would be our only hope. In order to prepare her for the transplant, she had to go through another year of a more aggressive chemo to get her back in remission. Unfortunately none of us (parents or siblings) were matches for her so an unrelated donor was used.
In March of 2005 Alissa had a bone marrow transplant at City of Hope Hospital and after 5 long months in the hospital she was sent home. In February of 2006 Alissa started showing signs of Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and she was immediately hospitalized once again. In all the years of her treatment, these few months were the hardest, we almost lost her a few times but she always bounced back, she had a way of doing that.. Just when you thought there was no way she could go on, she did. She was a fighter, to the very end. Alissa lost her battle on May 5th 2006 at just 16 years old.
She had so much left to do in this world. So much to see and it was all taken from her. No prom, no graduation, no college, none of the things that every mother hopes to see their child through.. No child should have to spend their life in a hospital going through what she went through and no mother should have to say goodbye to their child..
Although Alissa is no longer here with us, we promised to continue her fight for her because no child should have to go through what she went through.
