Published: April 12, 2009 02:17 am      

Bloom with Brogan

MONONGAH — Come bloom with Brogan.

Brogan Raddish is all about pink.

She’s got pink shoes ... pink clothes ... a pink scooter.

And she even bakes pink cakes.

So it’s only natural that a fundraiser being held this week in her honor ... “Bloom with Brogan” ... is resplendent in pink.

Spa Piccola at the Tuscan Sun Marketplace at the Meadowbrook Mall is sponsoring “Bloom with Brogan” April 14-19. At the Kid’s Spa, for $19.99, you can buy a “Bloom Bundle,” from which you can “make your own creation,” and get an event T-shirt (designed by Brogan) and a spring cupcake.

The “Bloom Bundle” is something that any girl would love to have. They can choose sugar scrub or lip gloss, and make it themselves. And get a spring cupcake and T-shirt for $19.99. All the proceeds go to Brogn Raddish, a Monongah teen in her fourth battle with cancer.

Treat yourself to a facial .. manicure .. pedicure ... boutique and gifts. It’s all for Brogan.

“A pastor and I were talking about Marcie (Brogan’s mother) and Brogan, and how we could help out,” said Kirstie Wadsworth, childhood friend of Marcie’s. She and her sister, Cheri Satterfield, (owner of Tuscan Spa Marketplace) came up with the fundraiser.

“It made sense to do something that Brogan would enjoy, that related to her and her age group, rather than a spaghetti dinner.

“We thought she would enjoy this. She got involved by doing the picture for the T-shirt.”

When Brogan was 6, she was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancer of the soft tissue, in her left humerus. Although she underwent treatment, the cancer returned in 2004. In 2007 doctors found a spot on her lung. And last summer it returned to the right rib area.

Her current protocol includes a week of chemotherapy, followed by a two-week “break,” which includes tests. This doesn’t leave time to attend West Fairmont Middle School, so she’s home-schooled, with her teacher visiting several times a week.

Still, she keeps up with her friends, is going to her school’s formal next month and is busy dancing, swimming, riding her horse and playing with Sir William Westly Winston Waddish, her hyperactive little Yorkie pup.

And to make sure she’s by Brogan’s side every second she can, mom Marcie Raddish has made her daughter her only job, her top priority.

“In 2007 they removed the whole tumor site on her lung,” Marcie said. “This past summer it came back on her right rib area. That’s what we’re working with now.”

It was Aug. 5, 2001, a Sunday, when Marcie first noticed the lump on Brogan’s left arm while they were vacationing with her sister in Virginia Beach, Va. They took Brogan to an urgent care facility. When Marcie saw the X-ray of her daughter’s arm, she was shocked.

“It looked like a sponge ... like a small grapefruit somebody had cut in two.”

The typical symptom of Ewing’s was a brittle bone that breaks too easily.

“So that was really a godsend ... if you can call us lucky,” she said.

“Our lives changed that day. It’s a wonder how quickly your life changes.”

Most of Brogan’s medical care is covered through her father Mark, but because Marcie doesn’t work, other expenses must be taken care of. That's where the fundraiser comes in.

“I stay home to help with Brogan. With her chemo being five days a week, there’s no way I could hold any type of job,” she said. The first time Brogan was sick, Marcie got a leave of absence from her job as a dental assistant. But that couldn’t happen when Brogan got sick again.

“That broke my heart because I loved my job, but I understood. Life goes on,” Marcie said.

Marcie’s childhood friends Cheri Satterfield and Kirstie Wadsworth have coordinated this fundraiser.

“She just wants to be a normal kid,” Marcie said of Brogan.

“She’s been sick since she was 6 years old. If we have to do this forever to beat it, we’ll do it. You do what you have to do.

“It’s a horrible thing to see your child so sick. The first time — Aug. 5, 2001 — I think I drew my last breath. You don’t have that sense that you can exhale. Your life is never the same. We went through a whole year and when it came back, of course, it was worse.

“I knew what I’d been through and what she’d been through and would go through.

“It made me physically sick when she got sick this last time. It was the hardest thing to do, to walk through those doors (at the cancer center) again. You leave there and think, ‘We're never coming back here again.’

“It’s taken an emotional toll on me and I'm an adult. I’m supposed to be strong for her. And she’s the one who gives me strength.

“I don’t remember anything before I was 6. So this is all Brogan’s ever known. This has been her life.”

But the life she has now is full of friends and family and activity.

“She doesn’t let it slow her down,” Marcie said. “When we went to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., we’d go for a treatment and be back here in time for dance class.

“If she wants to do something, she’ll do it.”

What will she do when she gets older? She doesn’t know but her mom has some ideas ... nurse, doctor, chef, the next Rachael Ray, even. She’s already a Junior Mountaineer, an honor bestowed on her by family friend Gov. Joe Manchin III. (She got a police escort from the airport, got to stay overnight at the Governor’s Mansion and even had the State Police order pizza at midnight.)

The next 18 months of protocol “will be a process,” Marcie said. “If they have something new come up at that time and we need to do it, we’ll do it. I put Brogan first.”

Brogan’s classmates had a Hat Day, in which everyone who wore a hat made a donation to her. It must have been a sea of hats that day because enough money was collected for Brogan to buy Winston.

“When we visit the school, we take him with us. He’s their dog, too,” Marcie said.

“Everyone has been so kind,” she said. “I want to thank everyone. It’s one thing to know the circumstances someone’s going through. But it’s a whole different thing to volunteer to help them. We’ve had such overwhelming support. It means so much that they came to us and asked how we were doing, if they could do anything to help.

“And this fundraiser is more special because it’s something geared to Brogan and her friends.”

E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.