Chandler Russell

Chandler was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on June 5, 2008. She is currently in remission and  finished treatment on Oct. 14, 2010. We want to thank everyone for helping our family get through this difficult time.We have been blessed with many great friends and a wonderful supportive family. We love you guys and couldn't have made it through this without you! Keep praying that Chandler stays in remission and beats this cancer!
Faith, Hope and Love...and the greatest is LOVE! 
We miss you, Mikyla and continue to pray for your family!



It was the last week of school and I was exempt from school because I passed all the TAKS test...woohooo. My mom still had to go to work so I was hanging out at home with my big sister, Lauren, who was home from college. It started out a normal day...I slept til around noon and got up to take a shower. While I was in the shower, I began to get dizzy. I had to sit down several times. As I was getting out of the shower and reaching for my cell phone (which is never far away), I blacked-out and when I woke up, I was sitting on the bathroom floor with my front tooth broken and my head sore from hitting the side of the bathtub. I call my mom at work to tell her what happened and she sent Memaw to check on me. I was ghost white and my lips were purple so memaw took me to the doctor and mom met us there. The doctor gave me a check up and we were off to the dentist to fix my front tooth. The next day mom went back to work and I was just hanging out. The doctor call and wanted more blood work...so memaw came again and we picked mom up in Longview and we went to the doctor again. We had not left the doctors office long before the doctor called and told my mom to take me to the ER so I could see a hemotologist. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at Good Sheperd and they told us we had an appointment in Dallas the next day. We got home that night to find out my little 12 year old dog Angel had passed away. She had been ill and had a stroke a few days earlies but it was hard to take. We had to bury my dog and pack for Dallas...not one of my best days. The next day was long and they didn't see anything with my blood smear but they wanted to be safe and do a bone marrow biopsy the next day so we got a hotel and spent the night. It was mom, memaw, Lauren and myself. We had dinner at the Spaghetti Wearhouse and had a relaxing night. The next day we went in for the test and then headed home. It was around 5 or 6 that evening when the doctor called to say I had ALL(Accute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) and needed to come back to Dallas and plan on staying for the next 6 days. That was Friday, June 6th and I had been planning on going to graduation that night to see my cousin and some of my friends graduate but instead we were back in Dallas. After a day of pokes and blood and platelets, we finally got our room and tried to get some sleep. My mom stayed in the room with me the whole time. On Saturday I had my port put in and my spinal tap and they started Chemo that weekend too. The next few days were busy and painful. I feel sick alot and have headaches but I am learning to live with it for now. The doctors told us that the treatment for ALL will take between 2 1/2 to 3 years. This is the first month and it has been difficult but hopefully things will get better and the treatment will work...Senior year should be great!