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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 12th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2009> An Angel with Medulloblastoma and blindness - Mia Wu
The light of hope as a firefly
      Mia Wu, female, was born on June 15, 2000. She's currently attending Taichung City Le Yeh Elementary School. Mia has a variety of interests including drawing, singing, dancing, swimming, rollerblades, and even math and language studies. She has no problem keeping up with all her interests.
      Soon after the start of the second grade, Mia's parents saw that her ability to remember things became weaker. She used to be all smiles in the past but her smile disappeared and she became extremely moody. She lost interest in drawing and dancing and refused to go to the lessons. The last draw was when she started speaking nonsense all the time. They sent her to the hospital and an EEG was scheduled for 2 weeks later. Unexpectedly, merely few days after the initial appointment, Mia started to stumble when walking and she was sent to the ER. After 3-day rigorous examination using advanced diagnosis devices, it was discovered that a 5 cm x 4 cm x 4 cm tumor was growing inside her cerebellum .
      After under going a 9-hour high risk open skull micro-surgery, Mia was plugged with tubes all over and transferred from the surgery room to the intensive care. It was a very successful surgery and it was the first time Mia fought off death. However, things got worse. After 7 days, the diagnosis report showed that the tumor was a malign one – it was medulloblastoma. This report showed that she had to undergo radiation and chemo therapy, which were feared greatly among even adults and were extremely painful and risky. At the same time, the side effect was appearing; the removal of cerebellum caused problems in balancing physically as well visual nerves albinism and atrophy . Her vision dropped below 0.01 and effective visual distance fell under 5 cm . In addition, there was visual field damage and the visual angle shrunk and could not track moving objects as well as could not distinguish colors apart on top of the reduction 3D perception. The shock and frustration was so severe. Mia's radiation therapy was wide ranged – for the entire skull and the whole spine. With the important human organ under the scope, it was hard to determine the side effect beforehand. The most obvious symptoms were her hair losing by the bunch, her oral membrane grew sores; she felt nauseated and began to vomit. She was tired the entire day and large areas of her skin peeled. The amount of red/white blood cells and platelets dropped. To avoid infections, Mia and her parents were not allowed contact people from outside the hospital.
      Mia suffered through 30 high dosage radiation treatments in 45 days in pain. Her best friend was her favorite songs. One of the songs was taught by her teacher back in kindergarten. She had quickly told her father about learning a nice song after she had gotten home from kindergarten; she said that song made her cry. She was asked: “Why did you cry?” She said: “I do not know; I just did.” It was because she was she was touched but did not know how to express her feelings. She taught her family that night and the family hummed the tune while falling asleep. After the surgery, she sang the same song again. She did not cry but her parents did. Through her voice, she sent a message to her parents: though I underwent a major surgery, lost my vision and cannot walk freely and had to suffer pain after radiation therapy, but I have moved on from the pain. After 2 days, she began speaking with a dimple, which had not been seen for a long time, on her face. From that day forward, whenever her father took her for chemotherapy, they talked and laughed.
      To ensure the treatment was successful, Mia was not given much time to rest. After 5 days of rest, the 8-time chemotherapy session began, which was the longest and most difficult part of her cancer-fighting process; what was difficult for others was the pain that she was going to go through, which had to be experienced to be understood. The night before staying at the hospital for chemo, while preparing for clothing for the hospital stay, Mia asked her mother to bring water color pen and papers. Her parents smiled and exchanged a knowing look; she was prepared to move on.
      The first attempt at drawing was as difficult as the first time receiving chemo treatment and the process was heart breaking. Mia's body completely keeled over and her face was almost stuck on the paper. She drew with her trebly hand (because of physical coordination issues) stroke by stroke and she had to move her head constantly to find her field of view. For colors she could not distinguish she had to ask her father to get them for her. The objects she painted were not even complete forms; the lines were either too far apart or bend in strange ways, but she gave all her attention just like in the past. The poisonous medicine slowly dripped into her body. At first, she puked until yellow bile mixed with blood came out. Her mouth, lips and tongue was lacerated and puffy. The surface membrane of her windpipe and digestive pipe peeled and her white blood cell count dropped quickly. Different symptoms of infection occurred over and over again. Mia listened to her favorite song and watched her favorite TV drama and drew. She did not cry again or scream out in pain against the suffering produced by chemotherapy.
      As the number of times of chemo increased, Mia's body became weaker and weaker and the side effects of the treatment became more and more serious. The temperature of her fever, her blood pressure as well as inflammation index became higher and higher but her white/red blood cell and platelet counts became lower and lower; she was getting stomatitis, otitis media, Paranasal sinusitis, cystitis , urethritis , Pneumonia, pulmonary edema, general convulsion , Sepsis and so on . However, all the trials made Mia's drawing skill improve and she was drawing better and better with better and better hand & eye coordination. She found a way to view objects from eyes with two different fields of view (because of exotropia ). With her memory she recalled ways to use bright colors. What was most precious was she was starting to laugh loudly again. The Mia that was happy returned with a sense of determination and bravery.
      The teacher of the special class that Mia was in gave her summer homework for drawing a picture. She used her disappeared hair as the theme and portrayed her mood during her chemo treatment and her hopes for the ending of it. Her light was only visible out of pure darkness. Mia taught her parents a real important lesson – “one must be content with what he or she has to be joyful and at peace.”