{"id":5660,"date":"2016-10-19T08:24:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T12:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2016-10-24T08:45:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T12:45:45","slug":"red-mill-student-shares-story-survival-new-classmates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/red-mill-student-shares-story-survival-new-classmates\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Mill student shares story of survival with new classmates"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first day of school for Abby Furco\u2019s fifth-grade classmates was Tuesday, Sept. 6. For Furco, it was Thursday, Oct. 13, and she couldn\u2019t be more excited.<\/p>\n

She was dressed for the special occasion, as any 10-year-old girl would be, wearing a long sleeve pink shirt adorned with a heart made of silver sparkles. She wore a pink headband to match, and the Crocs on her feet were dotted with flowers.<\/p>\n

\"picture-1\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so excited for this next step for her,\u201d said Patty Furco,\u00a0Abby\u2019s mom. \u201cWe truly hope, and we take it one day at a time still, but that this is the first day of the rest of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patty holds back tears as she speaks because the rest of Abby\u2019s life was uncertain months ago.<\/p>\n

Diagnosed with leukemia when she was 4 years old, Abby beat the cancer once before relapsing in 2014, 10 days into her third-grade year at Red Mill Elementary School.\u00a0Severe complications following a bone marrow transplant led to more aggressive treatment and hospital stays. In May, doctors determined there were no other treatment options and Abby was released to be at home with her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was in full failure,\u201d said Patty.\u00a0\u201cWe brought in hundreds of people to say goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Months later, back at RMES for the first time since third grade, Abby was saying hello to her fifth-grade classmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, I\u2019m Abby,\u201d she said, beginning a presentation she and her mom prepared for the class.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, Abby,\u201d said a single student seated on the floor. That response gave way to a chorus of hellos from her classmates as well as smiles and laughter.<\/p>\n

Abby and her mom talked through prepared PowerPoint slides to share information about Abby and her illness.\u00a0A letter was sent home to families in advance to share the news of Abby\u2019s return, and Patty encouraged Abby\u2019s classmates to ask questions about anything.<\/p>\n

The first question, however, was not about cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you play Minecraft on?\u201d asked a student after Abby shared her favorite activities, colors and animals to start the presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play on PlayStation,\u201d responded Abby.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayStation 3?\u201d asked her classmate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u00a0on my\u00a0computer and my iPad,\u201d Abby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can play with you,\u201d\u00a0said Abby\u2019s new friend.<\/p>\n

The slides that followed described Abby\u2019s illness and treatments.<\/p>\n

\"picture-2\"<\/p>\n

Patty read the text on the slide for Abby.<\/p>\n

\u201cCancer was small bad cells inside of me that tried to stop my body from working normally. My cancer was called leukemia. It was in my blood. It made me sick. Don\u2019t worry though. You can\u2019t catch cancer from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is a really important fact to know,\u201d noted Patty. \u201cIt\u2019s not something you can catch like a cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not contagious,\u201d added Erik Petermann, fifth-grader teacher.<\/p>\n

Throughout the remaining slides, Abby\u2019s classmates asked questions and shared their own experiences.<\/p>\n

\"picture-3\"<\/p>\n

One student recalled his long hospital stay with meningitis. Another talked about her father\u2019s heart transplant. A third student shared that her cousin is a cancer survivor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad to hear she is a survivor,\u201d said Patty. \u201cThat\u2019s wonderful! There are lots of survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abby added, \u201cScientists are trying to figure out a permanent way to get rid of childhood cancer. So if you ever get it, no one has to ever get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully it will be like a cold,\u201d announced one student.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly! For adults and kids,\u201d said Patty. \u201cYou know what? That is the world\u2019s dream, and there are people working hard on it. Abby\u2019s sister wants to be a cancer scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"picture-4\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m either going to be a doctor for cancer or stay as far away from it as possible,\u201d said Abby.<\/p>\n

The 10-year-old who was given only days to live in May, now talked about her own dreams for the future.<\/p>\n

Abby has another dream, her mother shared the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to Italy\u00a0 \u00a0\u0336 Rome, Florence, Venice and Siena. It\u2019s for a dream trip for her,\u201d said Patty.<\/p>\n

It was prompted by Abby\u2019s second-grade studies of her heritage. She and her father began planning the trip when she relapsed, and they continued planning it during her hospital stays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve researched it and she\u2019s chosen all the different places,\u201d explained Patty.\u00a0\u201cAnd when we brought her home thinking it was the end, she was so upset that she never went to Italy. So, we\u2019re doing it. Very nervously doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abby is anything but nervous about the upcoming travels.<\/p>\n

When asked what she is most excited about, \u201cEverything!\u201d was her response.<\/p>\n

And when she returns,\u00a0Abby\u00a0can give a second presentation to her classmates. Only that one won\u2019t be about treatments,\u00a0transplants and trying times. It will be about her dreams coming true in Italy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first day of school for Abby Furco\u2019s fifth-grade classmates was Tuesday, Sept. 6. For Furco, it was Thursday, Oct. 13, and she couldn\u2019t be more excited. She was dressed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5667,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions\/5667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}