Notes Left Behind

September 21, 2009
A Cincinnati couple bravely and lovingly recorded the last months of their six-year-old daughter's life after she was handed the devastating prognosis of terminal brain cancer. A trip to the doctor's office to treat Elena's strep throat resulted in an MRI that revealed a large tumor lodged within the walls of Elena's brain stem—“in the worst place with one of the worst tumors out there.” The kindergartener, who also had a younger sister, Grace, was given three to six months to live. A miracle was what the family hoped for, traveling to Memphis for six weeks of an experimental treatment involving intensive radiation, chemotherapy and tests; already Elena's speech, mobility and ability to eat had been affected, symptoms of the tumor's progression that would recede and recur over the next several months. The parents kept this diary from November 29, the beginning of their daughter's treatment, until her death August 11, “Day 256,” written in alternating POVs (mostly Keith's; Brooke's is rendered in italics), even recording some of Elena's own musings, such as that all she wanted was to be “normal.” The parents remained resolute in her treatment, even upbeat despite the anger Keith felt at the “unfairness” of this disease. Instead of planning their daughter's future, the Desseriches sadly found themselves “counting days.” This heartbreakingly forthright journal helped the authors push back that “second-worst day”—when the memory of their daughter would be forgotten.

In the pantheon of horrors a parent can envision, the ultimate is the death of a child. Brooke and Keith Desserich open up their personal journey through this nightmare in the heartbreaking chronicle of 5-year-old Elena's final days of struggle with a fatal brain tumor. Keith himself delivers the introduction and afterword, lending an even greater level of intimacy to the journal. Narrators T. Ryder Smith and Coleen Marlo's presentation of the parents' wrenching emotions enhances the poignancy of the family's ordeal without descending into the maudlin. The audio version's only shortcoming is the listener's inability to see Elena's drawings and read her notes, which are reproduced in the print version. M.O.B. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine