Written by Ben Cox – When a simple trip to the pediatricians office reveals something more serious than a minor infection or 24-hour bug, what do you do?
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and Brownwood has many families who have been touched by this terrible disease. Some have tales of triumph and overcoming the diagnosis, while others share stories of remembrance and mourning.
Thus is the story of Journey Chairez, a happy, funny, loving little girl whose time on the earth was far too short. Journey’s father describes his little girl as someone who did not let illness overtake her spirit. “She was always happy, through the whole thing, always real happy and smiling all the time.”
Her diagnosis came after a trip to the doctor after Journey had trouble holding her spoon because she was shaking slightly. She also had “a hitch in her step” according to her father.
Despite being told she would grow out of it, her parents followed the advice of friends and took her for a second opinion. When the doctor saw her walking, “the doctors told us you need to take her to Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin.”
Insurance issues sent them to Cook Children’s in Fort Worth, where the news was nothing like anything they had imagined.
“A super rare form of brain tumor that they didn’t have any standardized care for, so any treatment was going to be experimental.” It was a form of cancer so rare, in fact, that Joshua says “the doctors wouldn’t even give me a percentage of her chances. They would only say we don’t know.”
Defined as an Embryonal Tumor with Multilayered Rosettes, it is such a rare cancer that a Google search for the term brings up mostly medical journals, one of which asking for any information the reader might have on the subject.
Brain surgery, chemotherapy, and close to 30 radiation treatments at different hospitals later, Journey was cleared on her third birthday. A birthday party with family in Brownwood followed, but the celebration was to be short lived.
“About a month later, she just started throwing up. 20 to 30 times a day, she’d just be sitting there and start throwing up.” Thinking this was a side effect of all the treatments, Joshua thought it was Journey’s young body trying to purge itself of the after effects of the chemo.
After it didn’t stop, they returned to the hospital to find out what was going on. “They said it had grown back too fast to do anything, and she had anywhere from a month to three months to live.”
Living in Austin at that time, Joshua decided to return to Brownwood, so Journey could be around family. “She wasn’t really walking or standing much at that point. She couldn’t eat or swallow.”
Journey departed this life in her grandmother’s house on April 22, 2016. She was three years old. Her father says that “it’s hard to see what the Lord’s plan is sometimes, but I do believe in Him and that I will see her again.”
Journey left behind an older brother who, like other siblings of cancer patients, had to understand that taking a backseat to his sister was not out of favoritism, but necessity. “It was hard for him, because we were gone so much. But he’s doing well now.”
Joshua and his son took advantage of the counseling at the Family Services Center and he credits that with the progress the pair have made since losing a daughter and a sister.
Currently expecting a baby boy, Joshua and his girlfriend are sure that his daughter blessed them with this new life. “We’re convinced she picked him out for us. I take some solace in that.” (Journey’s parents had separated by the time of her diagnosis.)
Journey’s dad learned several lessons from the time he had with her, but foremost among them “is how to love unconditionally.”
