Press
Treehouse is a wish come true for Stuart girl battling cancer
06/20/2007
By KAYLA GRIFFIN
Kayla.griffin@scripps.com
Source: TCPalm
STUART - When 7-year-old cancer survivor Brandi Marine walked out of her house Tuesday morning and looked across the street, she didn't see her neighbor's house.
Instead, she saw a whimsical tree house perched upon an 18-wheel delivery truck parked outside her door.
The house, which is Brandi's favorite color blue, comes with monkey bars, a swing, a slide and even flower boxes. It's a gift from the Atlanta-based Children's Wish Foundation International, charity organization, which grants children with life-threatening illnesses one wish.
Brandi's wish was made while she was in the last stages of treatment for a childhood form of cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
Her mother, Kathy Thompson, said was not surprised that she wished for a tree house. After Brandi finished chemotherapy and was beginning kindergarten, her mother said she began picking up pieces of wood from the yard where workers were finishing construction on the family's home. She wanted to save for a tree house she was planning for herself.
Brandi's father, Gary Marine, said his daughter had always been a tomboy who loved to be outside and climb.
That all changed, however, when Brandi was diagnosed with cancer in August of 2004 at the age of four.
While on vacation in Connecticut, Brandi's parents took her to the hospital after noticing that her stomach and legs were swollen.
Doctors discovered an inoperable tumor. Brandi's family, including her brother, Jacob Marine, then moved to Connecticut so they could be with Brandi while she underwent chemotherapy.
They stayed there for almost six months.
"That was rough on all of us, her surgeries and overnights," Gary Marine said. "When she got diagnosed, I don't think either one of us could tell you what happened that first week."
While in Connecticut, the family lived with Brandi's grandparents while her parents alternated working and being with their daughter in the hospital. Brandi's three other brothers went to live with their father in West Palm Beach.
During this time, the once energetic little girl who family members described as spunky and peppy, lost much of her physical strength as well as her hair.
"When I was in school, kids made fun of me because I had no hair in the yearbook," said Brandi, who started kindergarten at Port Salerno Elementary almost immediately after finishing chemotherapy in August of 2005.
Just a month earlier, Brandi and her family had returned home and Brandi's treatment had continued at The Nicklaus Children's Hospital at St. Mary's Medical Center in Palm Beach County.
Her mother said she was then approached by the pediatric oncology support team at St. Mary's who told her about the Children's Wish Foundation and the one wish her daughter could make.
Brandi decided she wanted a tree house last November and picked out the one she wanted from the back of a frozen kids meal box which included a Web site for the company that built it.
"She just fell in love with this tree house and that was it," Brandi's mother said.
Brandi and her family sent an application to the foundation that included a picture of Brandi, what she wanted and why.
The foundation approved her wish and in December, Brandi received a box in the mail with a balloon, confetti and certificate announcing that her wish would be granted.
"She opened (the box) and saw the balloon come out of it and the certificate, and she was so ecstatic," her mother said. "She went, 'Oh my god, Mom I got my wish.'"
In addition to the tree house, which should take about a week and a half to complete, the foundation will also throw a party for Brandi on Tuesday.
"It's so great to see so many nice people left in the word," Brandi's godmother, Laura Caswell, said. "If you could understand how serious the cancer was that she had and the location of it and everything that the little girl had to go to go to get to this place, it's amazing."
BRANDI'S TREEHOUSE
The dream tree house is built on top and around a California Red Wood Tree stump that sits on a five by seven foot, six-inch thick concrete pad. Here's a closer look at the tree house:
- A door in the stump leads to a ladder that goes up through the middle of the tree.
- The actual tree house sits on top of the stump and has a balcony that leads to a lower landing.
- It includes features such as a window box for flowers, a rope climb, a tire swing, a tube slide and a full set of monkey bars.
- The main tree with the doorway and house is 6,000 pounds by itself.
- The entire structure weighs around 9,000 pounds.
- The tree house was built by Daniels Wood Land based out of California and was donated by the Children's Wish Foundation.
- Also being donated are Red Maple trees for the backyard by Coastline Landscaping and five yards of rubber mulch from Mulch Park Site out of Cocoa Beach with an estimated cost of $2,000.
- The heavy equipment used to move the equipment was donated by RSC Equipment Rental and Rinker donated the concrete.
- Team South Construction is providing the labor for the project.
BRANDI'S CANCER
Rhabdomyosarcoma is a type of childhood cancer and accounts for about three percent of childhood cancers. Here is more about the disease:
- It forms as a malignant tumor that affects soft tissue. It is most commonly found in the head and neck, bladder, vagina, arms, legs and trunk.
- The most common type is embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma that usually occurs in children under the age of six.
- The symptoms vary depending on the location of the tumor. However, the fast growing tumor often causes a noticeable lump on a child's body.
- The tumor can be removed by surgery, but in some cases, the tumor is too difficult or dangerous to remove. Chemotherapy and radiation are also used as part of treatment.
