Childhood Cancer Heroes: Ilaria Easom

April 9, 2006. That was the day our world fell apart. The day those awful words, “Your daughter has cancer,” were delivered to us.

Our three-year-old daughter had been complaining of back pain and a husky voice for 3 weeks, but her doctor assured us nothing was wrong. Finally my wife insisted on more tests and after a chest x-ray revealed a mass in her chest cavity, we were rushed to the hospital for an emergency CT scan. The result? Cancer!

Despite the devastating news, we were warmed by the support we received from the hospital, our friends, family, colleagues and community. My employer granted me as much time off work as I needed, our medical teams became family and, to this day, we're still very close to them. One nurse would bring us coffee each morning, fresh fruit from her trees at home, and treats she had made for her family.

Friends and family visited or called each day and my wife's mommy group really stepped up to the plate - literally! They brought us lunch every day we were in the hospital - all without ever expecting us to pay them. In fact, most got offended when we did offer to pay for the food!

My daughter's play group sent hand made decorations and posters for her room that helped our three year old settle in and feel as comfortable as possible in such a sterile environment.

There were also the more formalized methods of support - the hospital social workers, local childhood cancer charities, counseling, child-life, the home infusion team...the list of those who supported us in one way or another seems endless.

After four rounds of chemotherapy and major surgery, our wonderfully brave and inspiring three-year-old entered remission. That’s when reality hit that we had huge medical bills to pay. We decided to hold a fundraiser to raise money for our medical bills. Local businesses freely donated gift certificates and products as raffle prizes, people we had never met before showed up to take part in our sponsored walk, checks arrived in the mail from people we had never heard of. By December, we'd received almost $5,000 in donations towards our medical expenses. We never expected that level of support and we can never say thank you enough times.

To this day, we continue our fund raising efforts but we now donate the money raised to those charities that supported us, to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, and to the pediatric cancer research lab at the local university hospital. The level of support we received opened our eyes to how wonderful people are and we hope to carry that torch with us, bringing its light to others in our situation. Helping ALSF is one small step towards that goal, but it's an important one and we're already planning our next annual lemonade stand for the Fall.

-Colin Easom, Ilaria's father

To read the blog in its entirety, and to learn more about all of Our Heroes, please visit AlexsLemonade.org