Tuesday, February 17, 2009

More About Selena Rogers -- 1986-2009 from Her Mother April

BEAUTIFUL SELENA ROGERS
1986-2009
Dear Kris,

You are the second to ask me to tell about Selena- she must have been popular.

Selena was the miracle child of the family. She was born 3 months premature in November, 1986. She barely lived throughout the first year of her life, but somehow, by the grace of God, she pulled through.

We noticed something was not right, as she was very stiff and rigid, with some other startling symptoms. She was diagnosed several weeks after her birth with Cerebral Palsy.
She was always a fighter. She had to fight for her place in school, in life and in friendships. She dealt with discrimination from everyone because she was different. I hate to admit it, but the funniest thing I can remember from her childhood was when she was 12 years old.
She wanted to call from a school office to be picked up from school, but someone stood in her way and told her that she was stupid and could not do anything but sit there. She ended up running over this person's foot with her wheelchair. I remember her telling me about it just after she did it. She just laughed and told me, "It will teach _____ a lesson - to never bother me again."
The person whose foot she ran over repented folllowing the incident and became one of her best friends.

We came to know about her having leukemia because for a couple of months she was throwing up off and on for no apparent reason. She lost a lot of weight, and just was very listless. But she refused to go to the doctor, saying it was "nothing". We listened to her, which we shouldn't have, because she finally ended up in the emergency room after fainting. They ran some tests and told us something was seriously wrong. They kept her for observation for several days and finally called an oncologist in to look at her results. He told us that she had an advanced stage of leukemia.
They told us she had less than a month to live, but she didn't listen. I remember she told me she would fight this and get over it. She said, "Too many people die from this, and I am not going to be a statistic."
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Selena, although you didn't win the battle, you will never be a statistic to all those who loved you...
We hope you're swinging on a star, eating a candy bar, and singing "You Are My Sunshine" to your Mom, who loves and misses you so.
God bless you for being the light in the world that you were - and still are!

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