Allyson McMullen

Allyson Jane McMullen was born on October 3rd, 1989. She was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma at age 5, and barely made it into remission before the tumor returned at age 7. She had a difficult childhood. One filled with chemo, radiation, bone marrow transplants, and numerous surgeries to remove the tumors and eventually her left cheek bone. As a teenager, she had an operation to reconstruct her cheek, and had a few minor other operations after that. After high school, life was great for a while.

Allyson met her husband Curtis in their early 20’s. When they got married in August 2016 she could feel something wasn’t right. Several trips to different doctors yielded no answers, and she was made to feel like she was paranoid. Ten days after her wedding she took herself to the emergency room where they discovered a two inch tumor in her brain. She was diagnosed with grade 4 Glioblastoma just before her 27th birthday. She mentioned she wanted two more years and, unfortunately, she didn’t get them. She passed way April 4th, 2018, a year and a half after her diagnosis. She would have turned 30 this year, 2019.

Allyson was one of the sweetest people you would have ever met. She was always looking out for others, and trying to make everyone’s life around her better. Everyone that knew her still speaks of how kind she was, of the positivity that radiated from her bright personality, and just how much she is missed. Cancer was always in the back of her mind. We all knew it. She seemed to somehow know, or assume, that it would come back. But she still had this way about her, and a motto to live by: Keep Life Beautiful. While she was in hospice care, a journal she kept for over a decade was discovered. In it she had logged hundreds of sayings, quotes, song lyrics, poems and stories. Some were sad, some funny, but the majority were positive. It reminded us all of just how amazing she was and how she kept her own life beautiful, but also made the lives of those who knew her beautiful too- despite the struggles life threw her way.

She left behind her husband Curtis- who took care of her until the day she died, her parents Bill & Martha, two brothers Steven & Justin, three sisters Rebecca, Carrie, & Christine, in-laws Ron & Chris, her dog Lucy, and many close friends and other relatives who miss her every day.

If you’ve made it this far down the page, please read this: If you feel like something is truly wrong or off with your health, be persistent, don’t let people tell you you’re crazy- only you know your body.