EXCHANGE: With colorful beads, girl measures cancer ordeal

URBANA, Ill. (AP) - These aren't just ordinary beads 3-year-old Elizabeth Abbott holds in her hands.

Each of the 850-plus colorful beads on the Urbana toddler's string marks a milestone in her cancer care, and together they serve as a reminder of just how far she's come in eight-and-a-half months.

There are beads marking chemotherapy treatments, beads for doctor visits and hospital stays and beads for needle pokes, surgeries, labs and dressing changes - even beads for when her hair has fallen out and when it's grown back.

Elizabeth's mom, Jenny Maddox Abbott, said she's been in awe of her daughter's bravery.

"For the most part, she's just taking it all in stride," Abbott said. "She's a trooper."

Elizabeth was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in January, and soon after began receiving beads from her caregivers at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

That hospital is one of four in Illinois that are members of the Beads of Courage program.

The beads are given to children coping with serious illnesses such as cancer, burns and heart conditions, with beads of different colors and shapes awarded for different milestones - for example, blue for chemo and doctor visits, yellow for spending the night in the hospital and stars for surgeries.

Getting a bead is something kids can look forward to as they endure yet another needle poke and all of the other many steps along the way of their care, according to Cindy Maysonet, the coordinator of Lurie's Beads of Courage program.

"For many of them, it's a way to have something visual that helps tell their story," she said.

Elizabeth Abbott's own cancer story began last October when she started having back pain - so much that she became reluctant to walk, her mom recalled.

The Abbotts consulted their pediatrician about the back pain, and when Elizabeth also came down with a fever, their doctor said, "'I don't want to worry you, but I think this is cancer,'" Jenny Abbott recalled.

Elizabeth was flown in a helicopter to the Chicago hospital and needed immediate blood transfusions. Because of her disease, she also suffered two compression fractures in her spine and didn't walk for several months, Abbott said. Her daughter has since undergone several procedures, chemotherapy treatments, 37 overnight stays in the hospital in the first few months and weekly medical visits in Chicago.

Through it all, she's largely remained the smiling, good-natured child she's always been, Abbott said.

And she's getting better. About 90 percent of children with this kind of cancer can be cured, Abbott said.

"There was a moment, I'd say it was in February, where I felt, all of a sudden ... my baby was back," she said.

Elizabeth is currently in remission, and at the end of this month, she will be starting the maintenance phase of her treatment. That also will mean she and her family can scale back from weekly to monthly medical visits to Chicago, Abbott said.

Older kids at Lurie Children's Hospital are also given booklets in which they can write down everything they go through during their illness, Maysonet said. They're asked to bring their booklets to their medical appointments, and she gives them their beads, she said.

"It's a way for them to participate in their own care," she said.

Abbott said the beads have given their family a positive way to talk about Elizabeth's cancer and treatment.

She's keeping track of the beads, and Elizabeth will be able to look at them again one day, when she's a teenager or young adult, Abbott said.

"People have said she won't remember the pain she's been through, and I hope that's true," she said.

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Source: The (Champaign) News-Gazette, https://bit.ly/2lRysla

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Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com