Beautiful YOU 2016- Whitney | Laura Gordillo Photography | Phoenix Arizona Photographer
MEET BEAUTIFUL Whitney!
Our very first child to participate in our Beautiful YOU event! This vibrant young girl filled our hearts with soooooo much joy! She was energetic happy, and LOVED being in front of the camera! She was over there telling me how she wanted to pose! LOL! She also has a LOVE for photography and she showed me a few of her pics! I told her she could totally be my assistant :) Her mom Devinn had brought along an outfit inspired by Rosie the Riveter! We had some classic cars out front and the images turned out AMAZING! Specially having a model like Whitney! This girl can definitely be a model some day :) I was so glad her and her mom were able to join us! I was able to chat with Devinn (Whitney's mom) about Whitney difficult journey! As a mom, I couldn't even imagine seeing your child endure so much pain! Whitney is such a strong, kind, loving little girl! For someone so young and having to face so many challenges you wouldn't even know because she literally brightens up an entire room with that smile! When you see her you do not see a child suffering from Cancer! You see a beautiful vivacious little girl full of LIFE!
Whitney is a vibrant full of life seven year old with a wonderful and caring heart. She is the beloved baby sister of her three older brothers. With a due date of 01/08/08 and the unexpected arrival on 12/11/07 we could tell that Whitney was going to be very ambitious about life. Unfortunately, at 10 months old she made her first trip to Phoenix Children's Hospital with a diagnoses of bacterial spinal meninigitis which resulted with partial hearing loss. Since then Whitney has not spent an entire year without having to be admitted to the hospital resulting in five different surgeries thus far. Despite these challenges she still has a zest for life. Whitney is definitely an old soul with the love of Audrey Hepburn, old fashion movies, a unique since of fashion, and a love for baking.
As of April 2013 Whitney was diagnosed with a rare form of spinal brain cancer (Myxopapillary Ependymoma) and underwent surgery to remove the tumor from the inside of her spinal cord. We thought that she may be in the clear and hoped for the best but in November of 2014 we received another bout of bad news. The tumor was back and it brought five friends. She was no longer in remission. Whitney went through a year and half of chemotherapy called etopside, that was used to hopefully shrink the tumors but fortunately/unfortunately it kept the tumors stable. Being unhappy with Whitney's doctors decision to take her off Chemo and watch her, I decided to further research other hospitals that treated her type of cancer. We were accepted into the care of MD Anderson of Houston in November 2015. Whitney and I traveled to Houston in December 2015, where she received 33 rounds of proton beam radiation. She went to treatment in Houston every day of week and treatments lasted about 2 hours. During the duration of their stay in Houston, Whitney was hospitalized once for becoming neutropenic {not having enough white blood cells} and another time for treatments of 4th degree burns due to the radiation. Whitney and her mom returned home to Phoenix on February 23rd and were reunited with her dad and three older brothers. Currently, Whitney is continuing her care with Phoenix Children's Hospital and MD Anderson. She has an MRI scan completed every three months and meets with the complete hematology/ oncology team to review the results. Whitney is doing well and her tumors are currently stable. Unfortunately, she is not in remission but we encourage her to live life to the fullest and to never be sad cause everyday is a blessing.
After being home schooled during her treatment, Whitney has recently returned back to school for the 2016-2017 second grade school year.
There is nothing we want more in life than to watch Whitney grow up happy, strong and healthy like she, and every other child deserves to grow up.
THANK YOU so much to :
