This is from my sister Jeanne about her daughter Jessica

The story of Jessica Lynn Holzkamp.  Jessica grew up in Hampshire, IL with an older sister Kellye and a younger brother Andrew.  Jessica was a shy girl who spent her days outside with her friend Ashley.  They loved nature and were always bringing something back home that they had rescued.  Maybe a salamander, a small frog or toad or any other stray animal that might come along.  No wonder she had chosen to be a veterinarian when she grew up.

Jessica spent time at the family farm in Minnesota around the horses, which were her true love, and the cows, which she ultimately knew would be sold off.  Jess was an excellent student and played several sports.  When she was about ten, she began to take riding lessons and really began to get involved in horses.  She loved every minute of her time spent with them, even if it was just brushing them or cleaning up after them.

When Jessica was ten we had gone on a vacation, it was hard for Jess to participate in almost everything we were going to do, she was exhausted.  She managed to gather the strength to play in the ocean with Kellye and Andrew and the laughter was so refreshing, they all laughed so hard and had such a good time, when it was time for dinner Jess decided she would rather stay in the room and sleep.  That was not like Jess, so when we got back home, we went to the doctor.

Jess had very beautiful blonde hair and extremely blue eyes with a very light complexion, but when the doctor saw her, she said something was very off.  She did a blood test and found Jess to be Anemic.  What?! She was just 12 years old.  Why? What could we do? How badly Anemic was she?  All of these questions never really did get answered; the doctor set Jess up for more tests and eventually blood transfusions and medicines to increase her blood counts.

As the doctor tried to determine what was wrong with Jess, she became increasingly weaker.  When she had the transfusions, she would be good for a day or two and then her numbers would start to drop and we were right back in the same situation.  With no apparent answers coming from the doctor or anyone she sent the information to, I began my search for answers.

I had just been through this with her brother Andrew, who was diagnosed with a brain Arterial Venous Malformation and was given very little time to survive.  I searched around the country for doctors who could determine what may be wrong with her.  After 18 months and Jessica becoming weaker and weaker, her doctor found a doctor at Loyola Medical Center who would see Jess.

He too was baffled, but needed to make a determination on what Jessica truly had, so that he could begin some other treatments.  He gave her a diagnosis of Myelofibrosis, which is a form of Leukemia, Cancer!  While I never ever repeated that word to myself or Jessica, I was finally slapped in the face with it by another doctor who came in to consult on her case.  My heart dropped and my only thought was that they had to be wrong!

Jessica eventually prepared for a bone marrow transplant after many, many different methods of treatment had failed.  A partial match was found from a woman in Germany (I believe), but she was older than they preferred and only a partial match, but we needed to get Jess feeling better and get on with her life.

The bone marrow transplant was done after conversations with the doctors and staff who explained what would happen with the Radiation and Chemo.  Jess would lose her beautiful blonde hair and never be able to have her own children as it would compromise all of her female organs.  Jess and I stayed in a facility for 100 days away from any potential dangers, diseases or infections that could compromise her condition as well as away from her family.  She appeared to handle the Chemotherapy and Radiation ok; I on the other hand was worried about her psychological state.

While in the facility we prepared for the hair loss by ordering some crazy bandanas and hats for her to be stylish, lol.  We never really talked about children because it seemed too hard and we had to get past this part first.  Jess began to lose her hair in the hospital, but it wasn’t until I helped her wash her hair one day and I ended up with a hand full of her beautiful hair that I truly lost it.  That is the point that I truly believed my daughter had “Cancer”.

Jess knew I was upset, but we finished her bath and she began trying on the crazy bandanas, there was my Jess smiling from ear to ear and trying to make me laugh…that was who she was, always thinking about everyone else and how they were feeling.  She began squealing with laughter, just as she had done all her life while growing up, thus her nick name since a little girl of “Squealer Jess”.

She seemed to bounce back and was chomping at the bit to start back to school and be with her friends and horses. She was still being tutored at home for a while until her blood counts were high enough to fight off any infection.  

Meanwhile we were having follow-up visits addressing other issues that kept coming up.  Jess was losing weight because one of the medicines caused her a lot of Nausea and sores in her system.  They were several times after her treatment that she was returned to the hospital and had to stay due to the malnutrition, infection or because of the fact she would have difficulty breathing, but yet she still kept fighting to get back.

This fight was going on for about five years of trips to the doctor and the hospital to get her feeling better.  There was one time in her senior year of high school that she was able to return to school, but it was only for one day and then her numbers dropped severely.  She told me a couple of kids had thought she died, because she was gone so long and no one knew what was going on except her close group of friends.

I think that hurt her, but also provided her a little bit of “I told you so” to the fact that she was going to beat this thing.  Well for all this time, she and her friend Ashley were preparing to a trip to Disney to ride the “Rock n Roll” Rollercoaster, but her doctor told her she was still too weak, but she begged and begged the doctor to let her go, so the next time her numbers were ok, we were on the way to Disney to let her live this dream she had been waiting so long for.

The plane ride was very difficult for Jess, as she started to have problems breathing, but she did not want to stop.  We had a couple of days with relaxing activities so she could feel better and then went to ride the coaster.  At this time Jess was only 90 pounds, but kept pushing to get to everything.  She and Ashley had a great time that day, but then again she seemed drained, so Jess and I came back early from the trip.  She appeared to be feeling better the next couple of days and then suddenly she became lethargic and unable to breathe and the ambulance was called.  She was intubated at the local hospital and then transported to Loyola by helicopter.  She and her dad and I spent 45 days in the bone marrow unit of Loyola with them trying to figure out what was going on.

They ran blood test after blood test and kept trying different various combinations of medications with no positive results.  On September 5^th they found that she had a pseudomonas virus and then began a new treatment.  We were told at that point that had to decide if it was the treatable type of pseudomonas or the non-treatable.  Two days later they told us that she had the Gram Negative Pseudomonas type and that they had tried everything they could to save Jess, but she would not be with us for very much longer.

At that point her body began to shut down, she was bloating and they were draining fluid from her body to make her feel better.  It was excruciating to watch and she was in so much pain as she had started to get many bed sores and her skin was thinning.  The doctor’s suggested giving her some more morphine to help her tolerate the pain, which we agreed to, but then it put Jess into a sedated coma.

We spoke to Jess, but she was never able to speak back to us…she died on the 10^thof September 2009.  After we passed away, we were taken out of the room so they could remove all the tubes and medical devices so we could see her one last time.  Strangely enough, it seemed as though she had a grin on her face, maybe just for us to tell us she was no longer in pain.  We miss her every day and every time I find a penny, I believe it is Jess who sends them to me.  

In the last week alone I have found 8 cents, I miss her so much, especially now around Mother’s Day.