Victoria Enmon's Story (Extended)

whenever a family has a child with an illness you never know where that journeys going to take you and we always pray for a miracle she was the flyer she's the one if they would you know get and throw into the air she was this cute petite little tiny little girl with just a head full of long blonde hair she wasn't afraid of heights in fact she wasn't really afraid of anything we had noticed she had just gotten wheat I said what's the matter with you I said you're a tumbler you can tumble and do backflips you know without knowing and it progressed from that - she fainted a couple times you know only thought it was oh she's got a virus or whatever so I took her into the doctor the next day and they immediately sent us to Texas Children's Hospital but she was just from the moment I met her she was about 11 years old she just had a sort of magical presence about her and nothing would keep that girl down Victoria was diagnosed at the age of 11 and a half with acute lymphoblastic leukemia the cure rate for leukemias the 80% when Victoria was told that she had cancer that's the only time we saw her cry and dr. Dreyer walked in and told her that 80% 85% rate cure so Victoria accepted that she said she wasn't worried anymore in today's world we cure cure go away forever about 80% of children in 1965 we cured 5% of children so the improvement is unbelievable and Victoria actually had a particular subtype of a ll that the curate should have even been better than that Victoria's treatment was to take two and a half years and at the end of two and a half years of chemo Victoria was to be finished with her treatment so during that time you know she had some good days she had some bad days when she was sick sick sick she still would put on her cheerleading suit and go do cheerleading I have lots of pictures and important memories in my office and one of the ones that I get to see every day as my beautiful picture of Victoria is an angel at our camp periwinkle and the camp doctor had been a camp doctor for 20-plus years and I took a little girl who was suffering from cystic fibrosis and cancer and she was in Tory's cabin but Victoria would come around all 11:30 in the morning 12:00 get this little girl all ready for the day's activities for the afternoon and she got this little girl ready to go to the dance I will never forget that little girl with that dance what a wonderful support Tory was because without Tory this little girl would never have had the camp experience that she did now I'm gonna hand this over to dr. fritz back and see what she has to say well my name is um bunny make bunk bunk well bunny mate but today breaking story in 2005 Texas children held their first Radiothon with the Children's Miracle Network Hospital and that's where we met doc we were doing a radio thong and a radio station in Houston Texas and she was the kind of kid that you could hear her coming along before she got to your soundproof studio she was very full of energy she was just 10 or 11 years old and was already considered a long-term survivor of leukemia though here she is line up in bed tubes connected to her she didn't go and cry about it or bemoan her situation she were around to try to visit these other kids to make them feel better and I think that's the really the legacy of her at the end of two and a half years when Victoria's treatment was over they performed another spinal tap and a bone marrow test the dr. dryer called us I remember it was a Thursday and she said I cannot believe this but Victoria has relapsed because of the seriousness of her relapse they told Victoria and her next option was to receive a bone marrow transplant our community really rallied rally behind our family and our church you know we even had signs pray for Victoria so it wasn't just our family it affected everybody and she made it through and nine months later she relapsed again JoEllen called me and she had just the worst news ever and that is that Victoria's cancer had returned so this was three times she was told that she had cancer and so we began another journey to receive a second bone-marrow transplant Victoria at that time decided she was going to fight and entered the hospital for what would turn out to be an extremely long stay many many many months and so as a result of this extended stay I saw that there wasn't as much for her to do as you can stay placated with as a young person and he asked her at that time he said Victoria do you like to play video games she said I love to play video games so I put the word out to a website that I worked with called sarcastic gamer in the online community responded in droves what I expected to be a couple of games that might come from here and there instead turned out to be things coming from all over the world and we started receiving boxes of games we had games that came in from Asia and Europe and he was receiving games from all over Texas all over United States so much so that it became sort of overwhelming Tori had to end up giving it away to other kids who were also stuck in the hospital she was the one to go around to be that extra person for all these other children it just doesn't seem right that a child should be sick it's not right that a child stay in a hospital and that they're confined to the hospital and their four walls and they're not experiencing the other things that children are doing she couldn't be around other people that could have any infections you know she when she was out she had to wear her masks during this time Victoria contracted a fungal infection which is from a very low immune system and she had little to no immune system left and I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she said I'd really just like to get out of this hospital and go see Christmas lights Christmas lights are something my family and I go see together all the time and I can't even leave to see Christmas lights we knew that during the final stages that we weren't going to have Victoria with us much longer they're only outside for about ten minutes it was very special ten minutes was not a lot of talking we just looked at lights you and after about ten minutes we rolled back upstairs to her room and we had our picture made in front of a little Christmas tree and I said goodbye in that picture is one of my most prized possessions because it was taken just moments before I saw my friend for the last time and Victoria passed away before I could get back to see her the miracle that we received was it we had her for the time that we had I brought her picture and I just put that on the tape I said you know this is what we look at every day during this Radiothon during this campaign Victoria passed away on January 21st 2008 after a four year battle with leukemia failed bone marrow transplants and fungal infections it was as a result of Tory's death sitting at her funeral that I made up my mind that I needed to be doing this not just a couple days a year with a Radiothon that I needed to be doing this with my life doc wanted to do something special for Victoria in memory of Victoria and he came up with a fundraiser called extra life and this fundraiser would be for the gaming community it just occurred to me that gamers should be able to do the things they love to to help sick and injured kids as well and so extra life was born 1,200 gamers showed up on October 15th and 2008 this year's Extra Life gaming marathon we're helping save Kids Alive you don't even have to be a crime-fighting superhero each and every year afterwards it continued to grow gamers responded by being able to gain for their local hospitals the next year 4500 gaming showed up raised almost half a million dollars a year after that it was 15,000 gamers raising a million and the next year 17,000 gamers raising 2.9 million dollars video games are like the number one form of entertainment on planet earth happen now for quite a while anyone could be involved in this gamers aren't that pale kid in mom and dad's basement their mom and dad's your aunts and uncles a young child to an older adult to a grandparent you can take all that fun of playing games for 24 hours and reach out to your friends and bring them into your environment or if you want to play a board game according the funds that extra lifers raise can go to a variety of purposes in the local area at the local hospitals so maybe your extra $20 or your extra $50 goes to curing 87 percent of children with atheneum they might buy an isolate for a baby that is born the size of a cell phone that has to fight for its life I can guarantee you that but that money goes directly back to these children to keep this from happening they give that someone else's toe getting involved with x-rite is really simple you just have to go to the website and extra - life dot o-r-g put in a few details in there join a team if you'd like to or create one after that is as simple as fundraising with your friends and family let them know why you are doing this they should know that the money we raise is going to stay local in your community we never will truly lose Victoria because she will live for all of us through this it started with a little girl and orange taxi and I think that's all we have to say first all you have to say today so so we'll see you tomorrow our news that whatever time it is

Channel: Children's Miracle Network Hospitals

Views: 3,226,118

Rating: 4.9129825 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: rHSZ_82wiJg

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2013