Plainfield family becomes advocates of pediatric cancer care

It’s challenging to explain a cancer diagnosis to a child, whether it is to the child or the patient’s sibling.

But when Hannah, the then 5-year-old daughter of Kim and Keith Grispo of Plainfield, was diagnosed with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, a cancer that affects white blood cells, according to a news release from Edward-Elmhurst health, Kim explained it this way to Hannah and her older sister Hailey, now 18.

“We told them to imagine a garden with beautiful flowers,” Kim said in the release. “That garden is your body, and the flowers are your body’s cells. Sometimes gardens grow weeds alongside the flowers. We need to pull out those weeds to keep the garden healthy and growing.”

Why did Kim choose this analogy?

“We didn’t have all of the answers,” Kim said in the release. “And we didn’t want to overwhelm the girls.”

Kim later worked with the care team at Edward Hospital, where Hannah received some of her treatment, to start a support group for siblings of children who were fighting life-threatening illnesses, the release said.

Hannah feels that support for patients and their siblings makes a huge difference.

“My sister Hailey was able to receive support and stay with me at the Ronald McDonald Family Room when I was in the hospital,” Hannah said in the release. “I felt more at ease knowing she was close by me.”

Hannah, now 14, has been cancer-free for seven years and deemed officially cured for two. She plays high school sports and has no lingering effects of her cancer or treatment, the release said. She wants to raise funds for pediatric cancer research and help other families cope with cancer, the release said.

But Hannah also clearly recalls one reason why Melissa Slattery, a certified child life specialist with Edward Hospital, visited Hannah’s and Hailey’s school to talk to their classmates about cancer and its misconceptions.

“I remember being at a block party and a kid told me her mom wouldn’t let her hang out with me because she might get cancer,” Hannah said in the release.

Hannah’s first sign of cancer began on her fifth birthday with a fever that lingered for 16 days, Kim said in the release. From there Hannah, who had just started preschool, began losing weight and napping more than usual.

Because Hannah’s blood work was in a healthy range, Dr. Jennifer McNeer, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist with University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital and on staff at Edward Hospital, suggested Hannah have a bone marrow biopsy, Kim said in the release. Hannah did and was diagnosed 24 hours later, the release said.

In the release, Keith recalled the family being in “panic mode” and uncertain if they should move closer to Chicago to simplify medical care for Hannah since she needed treatment for two years.

Hannah actually wound up going to both Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago and Edward Hospital in Naperville, where she received outpatient cancer treatment closer to home, the release said.

In fact, Edward Hospital felt as if it had become Hannah’s second home, she said in the release. During that time, Hannah invented her own analogy to describe her treatment.

“I named each pill I had to take, and I thought that each pill was a soldier in my stomach fighting the cancer,” Hannah said in the release. “I remember taking my last pill and knowing that pill bottle did not need to be refilled again.”

For information, visit EEHealth.org.