vote for goodness.

the fawnz sent me this today. dave, her main man's cousin is trying to win a scholarship...

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dave says...

As many of you know, my niece Stephanie, otherwise known as Chuck, was diagnosed with aggressive thyroid cancer last year. She underwent an invasive surgery to remove her thyroid as well as a few other important glands that were also affected. She then underwent radiation therapy and is still struggling with the right balance of medications to keep her out of the hospital. The scar from her surgery starts behind one ear, goes all the way down under the chin and up the side to the other ear. Being a volleyball star, she was devastated that the surgery to save her life kept her from playing volleyball her final year of highschool. The muscles in her neck and shoulders had to heal before she could even lift her arms, let alone play volleyball. But this courageous girl still got up for every early morning volleyball practice and was determined to stay part of the team. With some hard work, she was eventually able to play a little bit in the back row and just do some forearm passes, though she still couldn't lift her arms, serve, block or spike (what she's really good at). Finally near the end of the season she was given the go ahead to slowly start lifting her arms. She was able to come up to Houston for a visit and came out to one of our volleyball practices here and did some hitting. We were excited to be down on the island and got to watch her play a small bit in her first tournament back. She was awesome! Then when her team won the islands and qualified for provincials, the provincial tournament was in Prince George so Kelsey and I went to watch her play.

Her neck and muscles may be healed but it's still a daily struggle to balance her diet and medications so her body gets what it needs. She's often very tired and naps most afternoons. Thyroid medications and calcium are super important and without the right concoction, it's very dangerous for her (as we discovered when she came up to visit last summer - she spent the night in the hospital on an all-night calcium IV because she had extremely low calcium levels which could cause her heart to stop beating!!).

Amongst all this, she has managed to maintain a 96+% average in all her courses and will graduate in June. Please see the link below to vote for her for the Province newspaper's Head of the Class Adversity Scholarship.

Thanks,

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Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 7:41 PM

Subject: Stephanie's a Finalist for an Adversity Scholarship

Wow – Steph has been selected as a finalist for the Province’s newspaper Head of the Class Adversity Scholarship – please go online and vote, link is below. Please feel free to pass along to those you know!

http://theprovincecontests.com/hoc2011/adversity.html

For those of you who were not aware of her challenges for Grade 12, she could hardly even play volleyball in September and only managed half days at school for the first semester. She only had clearance to pass the ball with no hitting/blocking/serving until November, just as the team was preparing for the Island Championships to qualify for Provincials. Needless to say, she went though exhaustion to pain, and it took her a very long time to recover from the surgery. She is absolutely an amazing young woman.

Connie