My daughter, Tara was just 12 when she was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma in the summer of 1998.  It was between her 6th and 7th grade years in school.  It took almost 3 months for the doctors to figure out what was wrong.  She was having headaches, vomiting, loss of balance, etc.  We finally went to Children’s Mercy Hospital and they did an MRI on her head and found the tumor.  This was a Friday night and the surgeon wasn’t fully staffed, so he opted to wait until Monday to do the surgery and get Tara fluids and hydrated.  August 10, 1998 they performed a 4 hour surgery to remove the tumor.  It was the size of a Tennis ball and on her cerebellum.  They told us that if they didn’t get the tumor when they did, Tara would have died within 2 weeks. She went through 6 weeks of radiation, 1 and 1/2 years of chemo.  Fast forward 17 years, Tara was diagnosed with stage 3 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma- Triple Negative Breast Cancer at the age of 29 in September 2015.  She fought her way through that ordeal as well.  She was told both times that with the types of Chemo she had and where the Radiation was administered, she was not going to be able to have children.  That was Tara’s dream to have kids.  Well in July 2020, Tara and her husband had their miracle baby girl, Lily.  Tara is the strongest person I know and fights through whatever is handed to her.  Her motto is: Live everyday to your fullest, you never know if it’s your last.