When Sophomore Ady Lavallee found out she had cancer, she said she didn’t even know what “that word meant.”
“I was so little,” Ady said. “I didn’t know what to do. I kind of just had to trust what my parents and the doctors were telling me and what was going to happen.”
On October 20, 2015 at the age of 7 Ady was diagnosed with Leukemia.
“I didn’t know how it was going to affect my body and lifestyle,” Ady said as she teared up.
Ady wasn’t aware of what was going to happen.
As she went through her battle with cancer, the tremendous amount of pain she was battling put her in a huge amount of discomfort.
“It affected me because obviously my body was very unhealthy, and I had never been in that much pain,” Ady said “[It] will forever be the worst physical and mental pain I have ever gone through.”
As she was a soccer star, and in school, she ended up having to pause that lifestyle because of Leukemia.
“I had stopped playing soccer for three years and I wasn’t in school full time,” Ady said.
Ady had gone through days, weeks, and months of treatment just to realize she has to battle two things at a time.
“Then I was diagnosed with pancreatitis because of the chemo,” Ady said. “That doesn’t always happen, but it was just a sist of fluid and It was in my stomach, my chest, my ribs, my neck.”
As tubes were attached to her body like glue, Ady described them as “a helping hand” in some ways.
“I had a chest tube twice, and then a back tube so we could drain all of the fluid, and then a port tube, and feeding tube,” Ady said.
Being able to find things enjoyable in this hard time is all that counted for Ady and her family. Being able to find things that would keep them happy, even though Ady couldn’t eat.
“I would stay up very late, especially when it was me and my mom because we would watch Food Network all night,” Ady said.
Being an eight-year-old, just learning how to take pills, wasn’t very easy for Ady. She would sometimes work so hard trying to take the pills that she would get sick and “have to start all over again”.
“Sometimes I would get myself so worked up [while taking pills], because I was eight and was just learning how to take them,” Ady said.
Ady went from going to school and seeing “her people” to then depending on the thing that made her feel “like everything will be okay”: OxyContin because her pain level “was the worst thing she’s ever been through”.
“This might sound bad but oxy was my best friend, and it was the only thing that would help,” Ady said.
Ady not only had her dad by her side, but also her “hero”, who never let her get down on herself when times were difficult.
“This one time I was laying down in the hospital bed with my dad in a chair, and I suddenly got the worst pain ever,” Ady said. “My dad ran to find my nurses to have them help me”.
In “crazy times of the night” she had to make sure she was up and ready to go for her scans.
“The amount of MRI’s and CAT scans that I had was ridiculous,” Ady said.
Ady had to take matters into her own hands and fake sleep so she could get time for herself and her family.
“Sometimes I was so fed up with people and nurses coming in that I would fake sleep because I didn’t want to talk,” Ady said.
As it’s still a very sensitive topic, Ady being able to have her family by her side, got her through what she thought was impossible.
“Being able to have and hear the support from everyone, especially my parents was very important,” Ady said.
When Ady talked about this, her mom started to cry. She put her hand on her mom’s knee and said, “Don’t cry mom, it’s okay.”
A Parent’s everlasting Love Through Their Daughter’s Cancer Battle
As a parent, their kids are their prized possession. They have each other, and they have the people they welcomed to the earth. Giving your child everything is all any parent wants. Hearing “it’s cancer” was more than scary and sad for parents Lori and Greg Lavallee.
Lori and Greg had to figure out what was going on for not only their daughter, but also how they were going to change their lifestyle to make everything work out.
“Greg and I were kind of on autopilot, we were obviously scared and sad but we just had to say she is going to beat this, and there isn’t an alternative,” Lori said.
Not knowing what to do, the only thing they wanted was the power to make their daughter better, to have the chance to take her pain away. But they also knew they needed to make most of every moment spent together.
“As parents we wanted to take every single bit of pain away from our child, but we couldn’t,” Lori said.
Having a daughter with cancer isn’t just “normal”. It was something that scared Lori and Greg immensely, but they had to keep a positive mindset.
“We were scared all of the time, it was a stressful environment,” Lori said.
Her life was spent on countless days in the hospital with her first born, Ady. Days and days were spent in Boston. As her second child, Avery, was still trying to live her life, and make her days joyful.
“Unfortunately I don’t remember Avery’s 6th year of her life because my life was in Boston to make sure [Ady was] okay,” Lori said.
Lori had to be creative and find a way for her daughter to have some time by herself, without all of the nurses and people walking in and out of the room. The nurses would also make up lies so people wouldn’t come in.
“I would write on the door, unless you’re this person, this person, and this person, don’t come in,” Lori said.
When Ady couldn’t get sleep at night because of the nurses coming in every ten minutes, she had to come up with her own plan to ‘kick them out’.
“Ady actually started to fake sleep so people would stop asking her a countless number of questions,” Lori said “She actually got really good at it too”.
Ady not only had her family by her side, she also had someone else. Emily, her nurse, was her best friend during that time.
“She had a best friend nurse Emily, and she was in on the fake sleeping,” Lori said.
The Lavellee family is endlessly proud of the way that Ady persevered through her hard times.
“I will forever believe that your mindset is what gets you through it, even on the hardest days,” Lori said “One day at a time and just get to the other side”.
