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Meet Autumn
Written by Carlene Lawrence
The past 3 years have been crazy. When our 7 month old daughter Autumn was first diagnosed with leukemia our world was tipped upside down. We were thrown into a new world that was surreal and as parents we needed to learn so much so quickly to help save our daughter’s life. Our main focus became Autumn; this was life or death… During the first 6 months of her treatment, Autumn spent more time as a patient on the 5th floor at Hasbro Children’s Hospital than she did at home. We were right by her side throughout the ordeal to finally get her into remission. During that time The Tomorrow Fund, a local non profit charity that we knew little about, was able to assist us with parking passes and daily stipends to buy a meal, get a coffee, get gas or help pay bills while we were caring for our sick baby. We were on our way to completing Autumn’s 2 year protocol of chemotherapy when we received the most devastating news that her Cancer had returned and Autumn’s strongest hope for survival would be a bone marrow transplant. Thankfully our 6 month old son Leif became our miracle baby and Autumn’s bone marrow donor. Just before the New Year, 2008, our family of 4 traveled to Boston for this life saving procedure and spent the next two months fighting for our daughter’s life and all these many months fighting for her full recovery. We had no idea of the help that The Tomorrow Fund could give to a family until we were in this awful time of need. We own Lawrence’s Corrective Tree Care and had to put our business on hold and give up our income to be together as a family during this very difficult and stressful time. Mortgage, utilities, taxes, and health insurance were all paid by The Tomorrow Fund when we could not pay. The stress that was lifted by having this financial support from The Tomorrow Fund was truly unbelievable! It was as if a safety net was wrapped around us throughout our ordeal encouraging us to focus our attention solely on our child’s care and recovery. The Tomorrow Fund supported our family in ways that we will always remember and will forever pay it forward. |
I love to share the story of our Autumn “Angel”! Autumn is doing simply amazing and continues to impress us more and more. Leif's marrow is now officially awake in her body and her body has accepted the transplant well. The many restrictions imposed after transplant are slowly being lifted. We will wait and see how everything goes – we are almost one year post transplant. Autumn is one of too many children that are fighting against Cancer and need our help to get them through when we parents may feel there is no hope.
When this terrible news was given to our family we did not know of The Tomorrow Fund; now they are part of our family and we will be connected for the rest of our lives.
When this terrible news was given to our family we did not know of The Tomorrow Fund; now they are part of our family and we will be connected for the rest of our lives.