Thomas Stone Swim Team Tee Shirts

The Thomas Stone swim team will be selling t-shirts to raise money in Valerie’s name; all profits will be donated to the Make-a-Wish foundation. The t-shirts are sizes S – XXXL and are $11.00 for short sleeve and $14.00 for long sleeve, with $1.50 added for each size over XL. The t-shirts are Royal Blue with Gold lettering and on the front of the t-shirts is STONE SWIMMING and on the back is We Swim 4 Valerie. I’ll be taking pre-orders for the shirts until February 1st, and then the orders will be available to be picked up from Thomas Stone after February 15th.

Please make checks payable to Thomas Stone High School and send to:
Katie Hunt
300 Willow Lane
La Plata, MD 20646
Please email me at khunt@ccboe.com if you have any questions. Thank you!

Valerie's Letters

Hello everyone,

For everyone that was unable to attend Valerie's funeral service, she wrote a letter to Thomas Stone and to everyone who knew her. She also wanted to make sure everyone had a smile on there face, by causing someone to hit the fire alarm during the service, the wrong song being played and her slide show of pictures was cut 3 pictures short. Even with all the bloopers, the service was beautiful. I was so amazed to see how many people came to show their respects. Valerie touched so many lives in the short 16 years she was with us. So many people have sent me e-mails telling me that I raised a beautiful person, and that she was so kind and giving because she was raised around that. Well I guess that could be true, but I think Valerie had a natural gift of giving. Being around her made you become all that she was. So my point is that she made me the mother I am, not me making her the beautiful person she was. To know Valerie was to love her. She once told me she wanted someone to love her, when I would not let her date yet. She was so modest that she did not see how many people loved her. I hope she saw that, while watching down on us during her service.

Here are her letters to all of you.....

Dear Thomas Stone,
I am writing good bye letters and there is so many of you, I can't write that much. I'm so sorry that we did not get to say good bye in person. I want to start off by saying sorry to anyone and everyone I ever hurt. I love all of you! Let me continue by saying thank you to my teachers and staff for the wisdom I have and thank you for your friendship. To the students, thank you for your help, trust, and friendship. Thank you so much for being there, you made me who I was. Your friendship meant so much to me and I will hold on to it in HEAVEN. I will remember every pep rally, battle of the classes, home coming game, dance and sports event. I will remember you my high school experience and to those who grew up with me keep our memories in you heart. I love and will miss all of you, I'm watching over you.

Valerie

The letter to everyone, that she wanted read at her funeral.......

I'm not really sure how to start this off, but this is how I'm going to do it. I will forever miss all of you and will be with you always. I don't want you to cry and be upset that I'm gone. I want you to remember the good and fun experiences we had. Being alive and writing a letter for my death is hard but there are feelings that need to be expressed. In the beginning when I first got sick, I did not want to believe it. I was so strong and tried to be as strong in the end, but it has been harder. I just wanted to say thank you for all your prayers because you're the only reason I was so strong. Your support was AMAZING, and it keep me alive longer. If I ever hurt any of the people in this room or anyone anywhere I'm asking for your forgiveness and if you could just answer in your head I'm sure I'll get the message. I love and cherish all of you, your all so wonderful. I want you to know you all made my life beautiful and made me who I was. I thought I was a great person and it was because of the great people in my life, YOU! Thank you, I love you. These are my final words to you.

Good bye.

poems read.....

Poem One
When I must leave you

When I must leave you for a little
while, please so not grieve and
shed wild tears and hug your sorrow
to your through the years, but start
out bravely with a gallant smile:
and for my sake and in my name live
on and do all things the same, feed
not your loneliness on empty days,
but fill each waking hour in useful
ways, reach out your hand in comfort
and in cheer and I in turn will comfort
you and hold you near;

and never,never be afraid to die,
for I am waiting for you in the sky.

Poem on Prayer Cards
Do not stand

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond's gift of snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the autumn's gentle rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die.

Poem Two
Afterglow

I'd like the memory of me
to be a happy one,
I'd like to leave an afterglow
of smiles when life is done.
I'd like to leave an echo
whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times
and bright and sunny days.
I'd like the tears of those who
grieve, to dry before the sun
Of happy memories that I leave
When life is done.

Eulogy read by Best Friend, Kirstyn Hughes

Valerie was my best friend. Actually best friend is only for lack of a better word. Everyone has best friends… but us we were something different. I had known her since a little ways through the first grade when she moved in next door to me. She used to tell me that if they had never moved in we would have never been friends at all because me and her are complete polar opposites. From the day we met… with me running in and out of my house, which I don’t remember doing, we’ve been inseparable.

We’ve done everything together from building huge snowmen, going to school together, playing with shaving cream, playing on train tracks, talking about the most pointless and yet hilarious things in the world, going on 2 cruises, camping, staying over each others houses, playing dress up and Barbie’s and house and Spice Girls, and going through this whole experience of her getting sick together. You name it; we’ve done it all... together. And no matter what we were always there for each other.

One day she told me we made a whole person. She’s the nice push over half and I was the straight forward tell you how it is and not care what you think half. Now even though she’s gone her half is still rubbed off on me… every bit of her has.

To quote a letter she wrote me…
“We never really had any bad memories, we never really fought and we always made up the next day and that’s because you’re really supposed to be my sister. You are my sister and I love you forever.”
I don’t think I could have put that in any better words.

I hope this gave you a piece of the beauty of Valerie's service, if you were unable to attend. Now if I have not given you to much to read already, I would like to thank the community, Valerie's teachers, friends, swimmers, Charles County Government, Arlington County Fire Dept., the MD Independent, and all the businesses that supported Valerie and our family. It has been a very hard long year and you all made it possible to deal with it. I will never be able to show you all how grateful I am. If any of the medical staff that helped in the care for Valerie is reading this, I want you to know that we are very pleased with the care Valerie received. Without you all, Valerie would not have made it to Hawaii. Thank you

Love always,
Bernice

Arrangements for Valerie are Below

It was one of Valerie's wishes that any of her friends may bring a small token that would remain with her.

Monday, October 23, 2006
Viewing
Raymond Funeral Home
5635 Washington Ave.
LaPlata, MD 20647
301 934-2920
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Service
Trinity Baptist Church
2671 Mattawoman-Beantown Road
Waldorf, MD 20601
301 645-7889
11:00 am

Burial at
Trinity Memorial Gardens
3221 Mattawoman Road
Waldorf, MD 20601

Reception to follow.

For directions, please use Mapquest at http://www.mapquest.com

Valerie's obituary will be in the Washington Post on Sunday, October 22 and in the Maryland Indpendent on Wednesday, October 25.

It is the family's wish that all eulogies be approved prior to the services. If you would like to speak, you may contact Teri directly at teri@babychatter.com or 301 751-5234 and she can get the message to Bernice.

Update 10-19-06

Hello,

Wednesday the 18th Valerie went down hill around 6pm. She started to breath very fast. I checked her lung sounds and she had quite a bit of fluid in her lungs. She was very sleepy but did respond and follow commands. She was no longer able to swallow any of the meds that were still in pill form. We did not get much chance to see how the thick it worked. She is just unable to swallow much at all. I called hospice and we got a medication called transderm scop. This helps with what they call "terminal congestion", what Valerie has. I was not sure if she was going to make it through the night. She did and then all day Thursday she had visitors and perked up quite a bit and talked to everyone. She was still having the congestion, swallowing problems, and rapid breathing. After her last visitor left she started to go down hill again. We increased her morphine and lorazepam to make her comfortable. Her oxygen levels are very low and falling. She is no longer responding. Her breathing is starting to slow down. So this is the last update. Thanks for you concern.

Arrangements will be posted,
Love,
Bernice

10-20-06 Update

Hi,

Valerie passed at 9:09 am this morning, Friday, October 20th. As soon as I have arrangement information, I will post it to this website.

Sincerely,
Teri Hanson
Webmaster

10-17-06 Update

Hello everyone,

Well in the last week Valerie has deteriorated quite a bit. It seems all too real now. Valerie decided she did not want to take her chemo any longer. She assured me that it did not matter to her if it was slowing the growth down. She said it was making her sick and she would rather it grow faster and not be as sick then to be sick all the time and live longer. She stopped taking it on the 11th. She is not getting as sick but I am not sure if that is because she stopped the chemo or if it is the marinol she has been taking. She does not eat very much at all now and has been sleeping most of the day and night. Some days she will sleep the entire day and not eat a thing and then the next day we will be able to get her to eat 2 or 3 times. About half bowl of soup is all she will take in for a meal.

The other changes are with her throat. She takes a while to swallow. It is as if she has to think about it and prepare to swallow. A lot of the time she chokes on drinks. So we have "thick it". This is something you put in liquids to make it thicker. This should help with her swallowing drinks. The swallowing problem does make eating a big issue. She will hold food in her mouth and not chew it. We have to keep reminding her to chew and swallow. We are feeding her now. She spills everything if she holds it. Her speech is slurred now. This is due to the tumor in her brain. She is having problems with her eyes also. She has double vision and she is dizzy most of the time she is awake. It is hard for her to look to the left, to look at whom ever is at her bed side. Sometimes more than others. It seems to be worse the first half hour after waking her up. When she is awake she often has a right sided stare. She will look off at nothing, and if you get her attention she will stop. However she will gaze off again.

We have changed some of her medications today. Trying to lower the pills she has to swallow. Her decadron (steroid) will be a small amount of liquid now. We are stopping her methadone and have replaced it with a fentanyl patch, that we will change every 72 hours. This is for pain. We are slowly taking her off the neurontoin. She has been on this for a long time. It was for pain in her legs before she lost movement in them. We are also taking her off zelnorm. it does not seem to help her bowels anyway. Also stopping the zofran, that was for nausia caused from the chemo. She has other meds for that now and she is not taking the chemo now. So with all those changes we have taken quite a bit of the pills she was taking away. The medication changes started today so I will keep you updated if there is a problem with the changes.

I want to thank everyone for their continued support and prayers. It has been a long year for us and it seems we are coming very close to the end of this hard journey. I am not sure how much more updating I will be doing, but if I can't I will get someone to take over with letting you know what is going on.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for everything!
Bernice

10-05-06 Update

Hello everyone,

7 1/2 hours later she was done her blood transfusion. Her color is much better and she is not as tired as she has been. That is great. She is feeling a lot better, however she still has nausea and vomiting. This is from the Chemo I would suspect, since we have fixed all the other issues. Well this is the first chemo that Valerie has been on that has given her any side effects. However that is ok since it seems to be slowing the growth down. Looking back at the speed it was growing and how fast it was taking away mobility before this chemo. She has not had much more deterioration of her hands or any major problems with her breathing. So I guess the nausea and vomiting is a small price to pay for more precious moments. The doctors have given us another medication to try and help with her vomiting. They gave her marinol. They said she will most likely need a blood transfusion once a month while on this chemo. We will be checking her blood work bi-weekly.

Well that's all for now. Thanks for your concern,
Bernice

10-03-06 Update

Hello everyone,

For the last few weeks I have been waiting for Hospice to get on the ball. I have been having problems with communications. I have been asking them to get the orders from Children's to have her complete blood counts checked. They always checked them every other week. So when Hospice took over it was going to get set up for them to take her blood. That way we did not have to take Valerie to clinic every other week just for that. Well to make a long story short it took several times of me asking Hospice to call and get the order before it finally got done. So here we are now. I got her levels back today they are LOW.

Hemoglobin measures the amount of oxygen carrying proteins in the blood. Normal is 12-18. Valerie's is 5.1

Hematocrit is a measurement of the proportion of blood that is made up of red blood cells. It reflects both the number of red cells and their volume. I believe normal is 40%. Valerie's is 16%.

White blood cells protect the body against infection. They attack and destroy bacteria. I am not sure what the normal is for that but I know she is very low on that too. Valerie's are 1.8

Platlets help with blood clotting. Normal is 150-450 Valerie is 190. So we are ok on that.

Tomorrow morning we are going to Children's and she is getting a blood transfusion. This should make her feel so much better. I just wish we could have found this out two weeks ago so she did not spend this last two weeks as sick as she has been. As they always say. If you want something done right, do it your self.

Thanks for your concern and prayers. I will update tomorrow and let you know how the transfusion went.

Bernice