A few weeks ago, I got to spend a few hours with a little girl named Miracle.
© 2011 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Miracle Ross reaches for a glove that her nurse Lori Maxwell is blowing up for her in Ross's home on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. Maxwell, who works through Pediatric Services of America, has come to the family's home every day since Ross left the hospital as a 10-month-old baby in Oct. 2009. When she was born four months early on Jan. 23, 2009, Miracle Ross weighed 13 ounces and couldn't leave the hospital until that July.
The paper has run at least one story about Miracle before, given her delicate medical condition. Recently, though, she’s been diagnosed with liver cancer, and doctors say there’s nothing they can do: “She’ll never be cancer-free.”
© 2011 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. With the help of her father Reggie Ross, Miracle Ross reaches for the ceiling fan switch in their home on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. Now almost three years old, Ross was diagnosed with liver cancer in May 2011 and receives chemo treatments every day at home when her blood levels are high enough. Ross also has a feeding tube and underwent a tracheostomy because her diaphragm and lungs are not strong enough to support her. Doctors have evaluated her to be at the same stage of mental development as that of a 10-month-old - an evaluation with which Ross's mother Sherrie Baker disagrees.
As I spent time with Miracle, her parents, her aunt and her nurse in that dimly-lit living room, I was overwhelmed by the warmth and love that surrounded the little girl. It’s a sad story, and I spent only a few hours with Miracle, but I left the house grateful for my own health and glad that the girl’s last memories will be of her family, home and love.
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