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| You are listening to "I Knew I Loved You" By Savage Garden |
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| Shaylah was born on January 14, 2001 at 9:43pm weighing 8lbs, 2ozs, she was perfect. From the time she was two weeks old, she slept 10-12 hours through the night and napped twice during the day. I couldn’t have asked for a better baby. Shaylah was our first child and she was the only grandchild on both sides so you can just imagine how spoiled she was! Shaylah and I did everything together – she liked to shop as much as I did. We went for walks everyday, I even liked watching Bear in the Big Blue House, Shaylah was my best friend. I was planning to return to work on September 4, 2001 so Dan and I decided to have a weekend away. We had never left her for two nights before. I couldn’t wait to see her that Monday. That night she was very fussy but I thought it was because she was out of sorts because she had been gone for two nights. So the next morning I had to return to work and I was exhausted. I couldn’t believe that the first night my perfect child decides not to sleep through the night – I had to get up and go to work. I picked her up from daycare on the Friday and as we were driving home, Shaylah began throwing up in the back. I panicked, aside from the first few weeks of life, I had never in eight months seen my child be sick. I called the sitter when we got home and she told me that her son wasn’t feeling well either. That night Shaylah was sick a couple more times but by morning all was well. Sunday evening my sitter called to let me know she wasn’t feeling well so I figured Shaylah must have picked up a flu bug from them. Monday I brought her to someone else and everything was great, so I decided to use her as my regular sitter. Around the middle of October I started noticing that Shaylah was wanting to go to bed by 6:00pm but we attributed her sleepiness to the fact that she was teething and not sleeping as much through the day – after all, she was nine months old. Around this time I decided to switch her from formula to milk since she was such a chunker she didn’t need the formula plus all the food she was eating. We started to notice that her tummy was very distended so on November 6, 2001 I took her to the doctor on call who immediately sent me to the pediatrician who decided it was a reaction to the milk causing her tummy to be so big. We then switched her to a soy based formula and were told to come back in one weeks time. What a pain in the butt, I thought, I have to start making formula again. By that weekend there was no change so I took Shaylah to the hospital where I waited in the emergency for 5 hours. The doctor there told me she had an intestinal infection but not to worry since she didn’t have a fever - it wasn’t anything serious. On November 14, 2001 we went back for our one week follow-up with the pediatrician who felt her tummy and immediately sent us for blood work and an x-ray. As I was getting her dressed after the x-ray, they came in to tell me that they were going to do an ultrasound - now I knew something was wrong. The lady doing the ultrasound was shaking her head when another doctor came in to take a look. The doctor looked at me and said, “This is when I usually tell people not to worry but I am worried, so you need to be worried. Your daughter has a large mass in her abdomen and she will have to go to the Hospital for Sick Children for further testing”. I thought I was going to die. Right away I called Dan and was crying telling him that Shaylah was sick and he needed to leave work and come pick us up because I was shaking so bad I couldn’t drive. We went home, packed some things, called our families and left for the hospital. We met with Dr. Lau who told us they needed to do more tests but they were pretty sure Shaylah had Neuroblastoma. We would be going to the 7th floor until a complete diagnosis was made and once they were sure, we would be going to the 8th floor where they treat all cancer patients…….CANCER - NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT CANCER. How can my perfect blue eyed, blond haired baby have cancer?! The next week and a half consisted of endless tests and on November 24, 2001, we were moved to 8A and began chemotherapy – it was official, Shaylah had cancer. She had a grapefruit sized tumor attached to her adrenal gland. On November 30, 2001, the last of the results (the most important of the results) which determined the stage of Neuroblastoma had come back and it was good! She was Stage 3, intermediate risk, prognosis 90% treatable. This is based on the fact that she was under 1 year old and the N-mic gene was present, but non-amplified. In total, we spent 50 days (including Christmas!) in hospital. During those 50 days, Shaylah had one biopsy, two bone marrow aspirations, a central line put in her chest, countless CT scans, x-rays and ultrasounds and most importantly, two rounds of chemotherapy. Oddly enough our biggest obstacle (which kept us there an additional two weeks!) was getting Shaylah back into the habit of drinking again. Doctors explained it to be as awkward for her to drink from her mouth as it would be for us to eat from our ear. On January 2, 2002 she did it!! Shaylah drank from her bottle (and never stopped again!) and two days later, we got to go home! The next two rounds of chemotherapy went fine with the inevitable couple of fevers which gave us a 48 hour, all-inclusive, round-trip (for two!), to the Hospital for Sick Children! Aside from that, all was going well and most importantly, we were able to celebrate Shaylah’s 1st birthday at home. Shaylah must of known it was her special day since she decided she didn’t need a nap and basked in the glory of being the center of attention!! Although we couldn’t have any other kids there (in case of germs), we made the best of it with a small family party. On February 11, 2002, 10 days after her last round of chemotherapy, Shaylah had a CT scan to see how well the chemotherapy was working and the results were amazing! The tumour had shrunk over 50% and we would be proceeding with surgery to remove the remainder of the tumor the following week. I couldn’t believe it – everything was going exactly how it was supposed to and Shaylah was continuing to grow and become a little person – it seemed like our nightmare was almost over. In the midst of everything that was going on, Shaylah was always happy, always smiling and was a typical one year old who loved Barney and Teletubbies. On February 20, 2002 after a 9 hour surgery, 99% of Shaylah’s tumor was gone but something inside me didn’t let my guard down – it seemed too good to be true. Two days after her sugery, while she was still very sore, Shaylah was sitting up playing, but by the fourth day, she became very lethargic and irritable. The doctors decided to take her off of the morphine in the hopes that she would arouse. On February 25, 2002 at 7:00pm, Shaylah was transferred from the CCU to the ICU. They feared she was toxic and needed to stop the infection from spreading. Within 5 hours of being in ICU she was put on a ventilator and given very high dosages of heart medication. We began calling family members and Dan took the first flight home from his business trip in Chicago. At 7:00am, I noticed that her tears were yellow and her eyes were not dilating – she was officially in a coma. At 10:00am Shaylah was urinating which we thought meant her kidneys were again functioning. As I was relaying the good news in the waiting room to family members, Dr. Malkin came to us at 10:45am to let us know that only moments before Shaylah’s heart had stopped and they were in the process of resuscitating her. The other doctors then came out to let us know that with the aid of medicine they were able to start her heart, but it wouldn’t be for long, so we needed to say goodbye. Shaylah’s now buried in a section of the cemetery known as Baby Land. At her burial, we released over 100 balloons and for one brief moment on a cold March afternoon, the sun peeked out and we knew she was there. |
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| My Very Own Angel God gave me my very own angel, one beautiful January day I had no idea that she wouldn’t be able to stay We all fell in love with her big blue eyes and blond silky hair I ache to hold her It doesn’t seem fair Everyone says all things happen for a reason I keep waiting for the answer, season to season Please God if you hear me Kiss her goodnight P.S. Don’t forget to tuck her in tight (written by Marilyn MacDonald) |
| "Mom's Tribute To Shaylah At Her Funeral" Shaylah Daniel MacDonald January 14, 2001 – February 26, 2002 Something to bring us comfort when we think about Shaylah is to believe in souls and to believe that she came to us an unsettled soul that needed to be loved and cherished. It only took 13 months of our love to help that soul become complete enough to move on to it’s next journey. It’s hard for us to understand how a life that had just begun is already over. We think of all the things that she will never get to do like ride a bike or drive a car but those are things in our world. All Shaylah wanted was to be surrounded by love and things like Barney and Teletubbies which she got every day. So in her world, life was full of exactly what she needed. We will all forever miss the hugs and kisses we can no longer give her but nothing can ever take away all of the beautiful memories that we will forever have of our big blue eyed angel. |
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| We Love You Shay-Shay! |
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| Me and my "Angel" buddies from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto...We all had Neuroblastoma. Please click on Mitchell's and Hunter's pictures to visit their websites! |
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