MIRACLE

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Greenbrook resident Jodi Jones touches the gray rubber bracelet adorning her left wrist.

In playful lettering, it reads, “Think of Kaydann.”

Her oldest daughter, Ryann, ordered 200 of them to pass out at Lakewood Ranch High School, where she is a freshman.

But bracelet or not, Jodi thinks of 4-year-old Kaydann every day, especially since the child — her youngest daughter — was diagnosed with brain cancer nearly two years ago. But even after two successful surgeries to remove brain lesions, Kaydann continued to have tumors developing in her brain for more than a year.

But just weeks after moving to the East County from Orlando, everything changed again — this time for the better.

After a follow-up MRI in September, Kaydann has been diagnosed cancer-free.

“It’s completely a miracle,” Jodi said.

HARDSHIP
Kaydann had just turned 3 years old when she began showing signs of illness.

“She was throwing up once a day,” Jodi said. “She’d throw up (one time) and she’d be done. Sometimes, she’d wobble while she was walking, but we just figured (she had stumbled on something).”
Jodi’s concern grew in the days that followed, and on Jan. 19, 2009, she called her pediatrician’s office, yet again.

Jodi, is she dehydrated? the nurse had asked.

No.

Then why do you keep bothering us? came the reply.

Three days later, Jodi put Kaydann in the car and headed to Dimensional Imaging for an MRI.

“I thought maybe she had an inner-ear infection,” she said.

But instead, the tests showed Kaydann had a brain lesion nearly 3 inches wide.

Jodi’s brothers-in-law, Dimensional’s owner Lyn Nixon and General Manager Jeremy Waldrop, began calling in favors, speaking with doctors at All Children’s Hospital, among other resources. Doctors demanded Kaydann’s presence at All Children’s immediately.

“It was very much a nightmare that day,” Jodi said. “I thought a lesion was a tear. I had no idea.”

The initial prognosis of brain cancer was gloomy with doctors 95% sure the lesion was a deadly medulloblastoma.

Doctors gave Kaydann only six to nine months to live. Everyone but Jodi seemed to hear the news. When hospital volunteers began showering Kaydann with blankets, pillows and toys for her stay, Jodi waved them off.

“I said they should keep it for the really sick children,” she said. “They looked at me like I had four heads. I was in denial.”

SURGERY
The next day — on her grandfather’s birthday — Kaydann went in for a three-plus-hour surgery, during which doctors cut from the top of her head to the middle of her neck.

But just three hours after the surgery ended, the child already was up on her feet and in good spirits. She cuddled up with pillows in blankets in one of the facility’s few red wagons and feasted on her meal of choice — French fries with brown gravy, blue Gatorade and tomato juice.

After the surgery, doctors learned Kaydann’s cancer was not medulloblastoma but instead a form of skin cancer called juvenile xanthro granuloma. The cancer, which does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation treatments, has only been found in the brain in one other case nationwide and only a few dozen times inside the body, Jodi said.

The news was good, except for the location of Kaydann’s mass, which made it potentially deadly.

Jodi’s husband, Sean, was granted virtually no time off work — only a half-day for Kaydann’s first surgery — leaving Jodi to care for Kaydann and the couples’ three other children — Ryann, Quinlann and Carson.

“If it wasn’t for my sisters and my mom, I probably would have lost my mind,” Jodi said, noting she stayed with family for a week following the surgery to be closer to both them and the hospital.

CELEBRATION
Doctors at All Children’s said to bring Kaydann in six months later for a follow-up MRI. Jodi brought her daughter in a few weeks early after Kaydann started throwing up again.

“She had a new tumor that was the size of a small plum,” Jones recalled.

The second surgery, scheduled for May 17, 2009, took longer than expected but was a success. Kaydann left the hospital in less than two days.

Months passed without any signs of illness, but an MRI at her six-month checkup again showed new tumors in Kaydann’s brain. The child showed no symptoms, so doctors decided to just keep an eye on them, rather than operating.

Six months later, the tumors had grown but still did not require operation.

The Jones’ family moved to the East County in August to be closer to Jodi’s family. And then, just more than a month ago, the Jones’ received more life-changing news.

“We went for her follow-up MRI, and (the tumors) weren’t there,” Jodi said. “There were a lot of tears. My dad was with me, and I think we skipped out of the doctor’s office. ... (Kaydann) is now officially considered a survivor. It’s incredible.”

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].

Pink Party
Lakewood Ranch High School’s Family, Career and Community Leaders of America Club hosted a “Pink Party” Oct. 27 at the school as a mother-daughter get-together and to raise cancer awareness.

Elaine Bowling, FCCLA sponsor and director of the school’s early childhood education program, which includes the Mini Mustang voluntary pre-K program Kaydann attends, said the group began planning events to raise cancer awareness last year, after a student’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It’s just amazing how many different links there were (to cancer),” Bowling said as plans for the event came to fruition. “We thought it would be neat to do a donation for Locks of Love.”

Fifteen-year-old Ryann Jones — Kaydann’s oldest sibling— had been begging her mom to donate to Locks of Love for months, and the opportunity couldn’t have been more perfect, Jodi Jones said. With the skills of a stylist from Cutting Loose Salon, Ryann donated her hair for the cause — and for Kaydann — during the Pink Party last week.

Prior to the event, FCCLA members polled students to see how many had been affected by cancer. For each student affected by cancer, FCCLA members tied small a pink ribbon to several trees in the school’s courtyard.