Quinn is such a sweet and sensitive little girl. She is usually very joyful and free spirited. She enjoys playing pretend, singing and making music. She loves her dollies, enjoys playing with her brothers, watching shows on her iPad, and of course loves all things pink, dresses and jewelry. Quinn can get dirty with her brothers but then loves dressing up and being a girly girl. She also loves her friends and will tell you about each and every person she comes into contact with.
Quinn was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on December 21st of 2017. Quinn got ill around Thanksgiving. She was pretty sick (vomit, fever, tired) for days after but then bounced back. Quinn would go to school but she would get very tired and take naps randomly or just fall asleep on the ground. School would call and let us know that Quinn vomited in the hallway or bathroom but she seemed fine each time we would pick her up. I (mom) was away the weekend before Christmas for work and received many texts from Grandma that Quinn was not herself and was very lethargic and sickly looking. We knew we needed to bring her to the pediatrician but being around Christmas, things were very hectic. When I picked her up from school one day, I noticed a huge bruise on her leg and her teacher said that she got that during music class. The bruise was very alarming. Her teacher also mentioned that Quinn had zero energy and couldn’t even get up on the stool. At that point, I knew something was up and proceeded to call her doctor. We went to her pediatrician where they checked her bruises, and took her hemoglobin levels. When the levels came back at a 3.6, we quickly found ourselves at Lutheran General with a possible “cancer” diagnoses.
Quinn has been through various amounts of treatments and procedures. She has received multiple spinals, a few bone marrow procedures, countless chemo treatments, weekly port access, home treatments, home medications, and more. Treatment can be difficult with work, school, and life schedules. During the summer, we needed to get babysitters for Quinn’s brothers since having all three at the hospital was beyond stressful. It got difficult when Quinn reacted poorly to certain medications and treatments.
Quinn has been incredible and such a trooper through this whole process for the past nine months. She has been living a pretty normal life despite having cancer. She can’t do anything with physical contact with her power port in and when she does get treatment she becomes very lethargic and sick. So, in that case, she becomes limited in what she wants to do and limits our daily activities as well. Quinn stopped going to PreK last year due to her diagnosis. That was very hard for her since she loves to be with her friends, however, she was able to start Kindergarten last week!
These past nine months have been eye-opening and challenging but also have really focused our minds and hearts on Jesus as we continue to navigate these waters. Normal life responsibilities were put on hold for awhile as our main focus had been Quinn. But, as treatments became more routine and everything slowly became our new normal, we started adding back various responsibilities that we put off. While Quinn’s cancer diagnoses changed a lot, we do try to keep some sort of normalcy for all of us so that her cancer does not consume our minds and doesn’t always become the focus of our daily walk, especially for Quinn’s brothers.
Quinn IS A fighter for sure. This girl is the strongest person we know and continues to battle each and every day. She continues to amaze her doctors and nurses every single week with her progress and overall demeanor in the clinic. They LOVE Quinn at LGH and LGH has become like family to us. Our baby girl surprises us daily. This girl is going to move mountains when she is older. God truly has an incredible plan for our Quinny Q, and we are glad we have a front row seat to see it.
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