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This site has been visited 17102 times.Personal Background
Caylee Cepero was born in Florida on September 03, 2000. She was diagnosed and passed the next night from AML on March 08, 2005. We had no warning. I love you Caylee and my heart is broken.
Caylee was 4 yrs old when she passed and was completely full of life. There was never a bad moment, never a bad memory, except the one where she died. Caylee comes from the word Katherine, meaning -PURE -and she sure was. All of my children had an upper respitory infection and had been to the doctor's the week prior and put on Zithromax. She was over the cough and on day 7 of the treatment, Her temperature was only 99.1 and the school sent her home. They said she was not feeling well(Thursday March 3, 2005,). She was still acting like a healthy kid. We had been for a field trip to the Fire Station the day before. On Friday, she had begun vomiting.
Caylee's Hope Foundation, http://www.cayleeshope.com raising awareness and money for research money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society for research towards Pediatric Blood Cancers and Diseases and funding for research into causes of Pediatric Cancers. Caylee's Heart Foundation, www.cayleesheart.org benefiting families through the Children's Cancer Center, who have or have lost a child with cancer; touching the hearts of those touched by childhood cancer.
Heartbreaking - So very sad.What a beautiful little girl caylee was.
She must make a beautiful angel - from jacqueline Little Angel - Yes you lost a child and I can never claim to know how you feel. I know Caylee is now one of your Angels smiling and guarding you. In my culture which happens to be Xhosa in South Africa we believe that we have Izinyanya you may call them ancestors or Angels, Caylee is one. May you take pride in having known and loved her. God Bless. - from Dolly Johannesburg South Africa How blessed - How blessed you and your loved ones have been to have had this precious little Caylee in your lives. I have also lost a baby girl and she will always be in my heart as I know Caylee is in yours. I try to remember the quote, "always blessings, never losses" because when I think of the blessings my baby girl brought me there is so much joy and love there. Blessings to you. - from Debbie May God Bless You - Im so sorry to hear about your precious little girl. She's so beautiful. My prayers and thoughts are with you and your family. - from Lydia Barner your little flower - so sorry for your loss of such a beautiful little girl.
she looks so bubbly and sweet in your photos.
she is now among the angels and is a beautiful angel herself who will be safe in gods hands.
you are in my thoughts as are the angels who pass us by.
god bless you and your family. - from adele Samantha - Your daughter has the light of life in her eyes. May you know her heart lives on in you. barb - i dont know you but i want to tell you she is a beautiful little girl and she is watching over you i lost my grandson in jan of this year he was still born his name was austin now they can play togther in heaven Nicola Smerdon - Iam so sorry for your loss. I live in england and a came across this website by mistake. I am so glad I did. I got to see your beautiful girl. I am so truly sorry for your loss. thinking of you all. xxx amber bryan - im so sorry for your loss i cant even begin to imagine what u are goin through, i dont know u but i just wanted to let u know that she is lookin down on u and she will always be with u. god bless you kimberly c mccray - when i read this i cried over and over i lost my mother do to cancer.caylee was so pretty to me but don't think about it the hard way just think about that god send a angel to be with you for the 4 years that caylee was with you but then she had to go back home with our father.... when i first read about this all i could really do was think about my 1 1/2 old son...
I thought it was stomach virus. Saturday, she had stopped vomiting, was dry heaving and not keeping anything down, I took her to Healthpoint After Hours Pediatrics. He diagnosed it as a Stomach Virus. I let her sleep Sunday except when she wanted to go to Church, she ate some breakfast, but was tired
because of the Promethazine they had given her. Monday morning she looked worse, we took her to her Pediatrician about 9am.
He immediately diagnosed it on sight as Leukemia, Monday, March 7, 2005. We were devastated. He said, "This is not a Death Sentence like it used to be."
We took her to the Children's Hospital and they aspirated blood from her marrow and diagnosed it as ALL with a 80% chance of survival, this was the initial early diagnosis. The next morning the final results came in and it was not ALL, but AML, Acute Myeloid Leukemia and now the prognosis was 40% with Chemo and 65% with a Transplant.
My whole world seemed to end at that moment. The Oncologist gave us her road map and said it would mean 10 days of Chemo and then more treatments lasting 2 1/2 years and then she may relapse and need a bone marrow transplant and could eventually die. With 20 years + of experience, they had never seen or expected anything like this. Her WBC was 283,000 (hyperleukocytosis) and when they started Leukopheresis, a treatment that cleans out all unnecessary white blood cells.
Her count came down momentarily to 190,000 and then went back up to 220,000 with an hour left of the treatment. Her heart rate was now at almost 200, they had to put a ventilator in and they explained that we could lose her. They had to resuscitate her twice, 2 minutes and back on Support.
She was not clotting and all of her organs were failing, she was not stable and having a difficult time breathing, she was now hemoraghing and I was told she probably was not going to make it through the night. I told them to keep trying. I could not fail her. Our priest, Father Rich from St. Catherine's Episcopal Church was there and he said, "The last bit of love you can give her is to let her go."
I knew he was right when the bags of blood they were putting in to stabalize her started coming back out. She was bleeding to death, so we had to make a decision to let her go before she did. The Hematologists said that it would be far worse if that happened. We could not bear to do that to her. So, I told them to disconnect her and asked them to give her to me. She never took another breath after she was disconnected.
I held her for a long time. I touched her little feet and hands and rubbed her tummy that had hurt so much and kissed her over and over again. I told her that I was so sorry that this happened to her and that I loved being her mommy and that I was lucky to have had that opportunity. She died at 8:13 pm on Tuesday, March 8, 2005.
In November, her class made cards for Thanksgiving. Caylee's card said she wanted to thank Papa for taking her fishing, mommy for buying her things and Jesus for giving her TV. The last thing she said to us just a couple of hours
before she passed was, "Papa, I want to watch TV."
I want to think that Jesus was standing there telling her whenever she was ready to go home just say it. I think it was her way of saying to us she was ready. She closed her eyes and did not open them or ever speak again. I truly believe she was already gone. 
Two Foundations have been formed:
Make a donation to Caylee's Hope at www.cayleeshope.com and/or walk or start a Caylee's Hope team in your area for the Light tne Night Walk to raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Visit the site and find out how.
Visit our store at www.cafepress.com/cayleeshope or make a donation to www.cayleesheart.org to benefit the Children's Cancer Center.
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