October 16th 2003 seems just like yesterday yet it was so long ago. You grew up so fast and continued to make me proud of you over and over by watching you turn into the beautiful young lady you became! Your daddy and I couldn't of been any happier with the way you turned out. It started out you saved my life in several ways and over the past 16 years you have continued to help me grow. I was the happiest woman on earth when the doctors laid you in my arms and I got to experience what it felt like to be be a mother for the very first time! You were so amazingly beautiful and I fell in love with those big brown eyes!! You were so perfect and yet I was so scared I was going to mess up raising you. That was the day I realized what it was like to feel so many emotions all at once and the first time in my life that I actually felt true fear! I made a promise to you to be the best mother I could to you and give you the world and that is exactly what I tried to do.

Growing up she was the happiest baby I could of ever ask for, she had such an amazing personality and she always kept a smile on her face. We would give her every toy in the world but she still had a fascination with going into the kitchen and pulling out the can foods, pots, pans, and she would sit for ever just playing with these items while ignoring all her toys. The joy, love, and comfort she brought to my life was so magical and I still can't come up with enough words to describe just how magical the feeling was and how much it meant to me! I did everything I could to spoil you and make you a big time mommy's girl! Time kept going by so fast and you were growing so much faster than I wanted.

As you became a teenager you made me and your father extremely proud of the young woman you were becoming. Yes, you made mistakes but you were human and trying to figure out who you really were and what to do in life. Teenage years are the most confusing for anyone but you knew exactly what you wanted in life and you fully went for it. You had such determination and drive in your soul which made us extremely proud! Even as a teenager you were carefree and so full of life and always carried the most amazing smile that could make me smile! You never let anything bother you for too long and you always tried to find the best in everyone no matter what. Oh baby, you were the most amazing teen, little woman, sister, daughter, niece, friend, and any other title you carried because you were the best of it all!

All of June 2018 doctors were telling my daughter she was having sciatic issue due to the symptoms she was having in her back and kept scheduling her appointments to have it checked out really good and taken care of. Well, on July 7th 2018 my husband ended up having to rush her to the hospital to have scans and checks done because she lost her ability to walk. Sunday July 8th 2018 I woke up at 4:30am to get ready for work and notices they still wasn't home. I called the hospital to find out what was going on and why she wasn't home yet. They informed me that she was being admitted for further evaluation to see what is exactly going on. She was admitted on July 7th 2018 and they conducted the scans and testings. Later that evening a doctor came in and introduced herself as a Pediatric Oncologist Doctor and I flipped out asking if she had the correct patient because we was here for her back which was potentially a form of sciatic issues. She said yes she had the correct patient and explained the findings that consisted of multiple tumors. She informed me that everything was being sent to St.Judes for further diagnosis. Come July 18th we were still in the hospital from the 7th and she agreed to let us go home until they heard back from St.Judes on the results. It wasn't 2 days later that we was being called back into the office on Friday July 20th 2018 letting us know that she had Stage 4 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma and she would need to start treatments right away. On Monday July 23rd 2018 they began day 1 of her chemotherapy treatment. During the entire treatment process we ended up staying in the hospital 85% of the time from July 2018 until December 2018. She was then releases and had her treatments continued as well as radiation started. After her first round of chemotherapy and radiation she did good and was starting to gain her strength and herself back to normal with minor issues here and there that wasn't too disturbing to the medical world.

In August 2019 the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted my babies wish that her and her family goes and spends a week in Hawaii because she always wanted to see and be on an island. They ended up sending us to Honolulu and we stayed oceanfront on Waikiki Beach. She had the time of her life as we were able to do so many things from swimming with dolphins, horseback riding along the ocean, and so many more things. While we were there we took many road trips and explored the entire island of Honolulu. I would give anything to relive those moments because she had the time of her life. While we were at Pearl Harbor she had the ability to crack open and make herself a pearl necklace. The blackish colored pearl she received represented strength which was very fitting. She had so much strength and fight in her soul and never let anything get her down. While in Hawaii I seen her have the most energy she could possibly ever have while going through so much tourture of the cancer treatments.

While we were in Hawaii we received a call that the cancer had resurfaced on her pancreas after the first round of radiation got it. So, when we came home we had to schedule a scan and take Alyssa to get a procedure done where they placed gold pieces within the pancreas so they could do something called cyber-knife radiation. Well, she went through that round of radiation and it seemed to work. When she had the scan at the end of her radiation it showed that it had helped her cancer once again. 3 months later she went for her follow up scan just to learn that the cancer had came back and that the tumors where back in the pancreas, lymph nodes of her abdomen, lymph nodes in her chest, in her bones, and the cancer was attacking her abdominal lining. This caused our hearts to drop and we started questioning what is the next step in her journey. This is when we got the worst news we could of ever received that there wasn't anything else they could do for her. All we could do is take care of her, watch her fight for her life, and let the cancer do whatever it wanted to do and that everything was out of our hands now.

At this point they had called hospice in and we all knew that when they get hospice involved the outcome isn't that good. I ended up creating a GoFundMe page that done extremely well so that I was able to stay home and care for my daughter while she was living out the rest of her life. Her story and the page was shared so many times that one particular lady and many others worked so hard and surprised my daughter with her very own prom since she would never be able to experience this on her own as she was home-schooled. The night turned out so magical and she had the time of her life! She finally got out the house, had an amazing time, got to hang out with friends, and dance. This event left such a remarkable impact on her that she spoke about this event for a full week afterwards. She shed so many happy tears that the community would come together and put on something like this for her when they didn't even know her. This was such an amazing night for her!

The entire first week after her prom event she was doing good just a little weak and tired but by the mid of the second week she became extremely weak and couldn't do the things she normally could do on her own. Anytime she got up to try and walk we had to help her due to the weakness and we had to help dress her due to the pain and weakness both. Each day that passed she developed new issues. I couldn't understand just how this disease could change someone so much from day to day. The next day she got to the point where she couldn't hardly see, she stopped eating and was barely drinking anything, she didn't want to get out of bed and loved having mommy lay there and hold her while I rubbed her back to help comfort her. Everything seemed to be happening so fast and I was left feeling so helpless because no matter what I done, what hospice done, and what doctors done she was progressively getting worse. The type of cancer she had (Stage 4 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma) is the worst cancer I have ever heard of and it acts extremely fast no matter what!

March 8th 2020
10:30PM

** WORST DAY OF MY LIFE **

After just 4 days of getting progressively worse my sweet girl gained her angel wings and left us. I try not to think of it as her losing her battle but I try to think of it as her beating this nasty disease because she is no longer suffering and no longer has to battle cancer.

It kills me so much to know that she is no longer with me because the moment she stopped breathing and left ... a part of my heart and soul left with her and I will never get it back. This is a child that I carried and gave birth to, a child that I devoted all my love, life, and time to and a child who I gave everything she could ever possible ever want or need. I gave up so much to take care of her and I would do it over and over again if I could just have her back!! I will never be the same and I will forever feel and empty place in my heart and soul! She wasn't just my daughter but she was my best friend and we did so much together!