A couple of months after Jeanine turned 16 years old, right before Spring Break, she started waking up with headaches.  She was diagnosed with a brain tumor at Children’s Memorial Hospital.  A few days later, the tumor was removed and the pathology report showed that it was a "Clear Cell Ependymoa" which is usually a benign tumor.  Nine months later, I woke up to her having a seizure and the tumor was back.  Again, the doctors at Children’s removed the tumor and recommended radiation therapy to the sight to kill any remaining cells.  Jeanine had radiation therapy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for six weeks, Monday through Friday.  During this time, she continued to go to high school everyday and after her radiation therapy everyday, I would take Jeanine back to the high school so that her Algebra teacher could tutor her.  Jeanine was also in Cosmetology school at this time (although she took a medical leave during the six weeks) but made up the missed time and graduated with her Cosmetology class.

For the following 18 months Jeanine was fine - doing typical Jeanine things.  Graduated from High School, took her State Boards for her Cosmetology license, worked at Eich Sports, hung out with friends and enrolled in College.  In August before she started college, her arm went numb and she was slurring her words.  She was diagnosed again with two brain tumors (one was removed surgically at Children’s and the second was removed from Gamma Knife (a high dose of radiation to the sight) at Northwestern Memorial.  We also found out that somehow the cells escaped her brain to the lymph system surrounding her head.   After Jeanine's oncologist at Children’s consulted with other doctors at St. Judes Hospital and John Hopkins Hospital, the recommendation was a chemotherapy cocktail.  Jeanine had this treatment for about 3 months with no favorable results.  She had a month break and then tried a different chemotherapy treatment.  No favorable results and the tumors in her neck were growing. 

She then had radiation therapy to her neck to shrink the tumors (summer of 2007). After radiation to her neck was done she went on vacation with her friends to Mexico.  In September it was recommended that she have throat surgery to remove the growth from one side.  After approximately 16 hours of surgery, the surgeons removed as much as they could along with her jugular vein because it had been strangled by the cancer and was dead.  In November she had surgery on the other side of her throat to remove as much of the tumor as they could because Jeanine said "I know I'm not going to beat this but if I don't get this tumor removed soon, I'm not going to be able to swallow and breath" because she could feel her throat closing.   

The doctors told us that the jugular vein in that side of the throat was still working but he didn't think it would be working much longer.  His hope was that the vein in the back of her head by her neck would take over.  That didn't happen.  In December her face started swelling up (she had lymphedema in her face).  
The above surgeries, treatments and side effects were a small facet of Jeanine's life.  As a matter of fact, until the last three months of Jeanine's life, you would have never known she had cancer.  She did what the doctors recommended but didn't dwell on it.  She bounced back from her surgeries quickly.  The day Jeanine was released from the hospital after undergoing her second brain tumor removal, she was at the high school managing the boys basketball team at their game that night.