VOTERS GUIDE: Get to know legislative candidates Pages 3, 6, 7 $1.00
ELECT ION 2016
AN EDITION OF THE IDAHO PRESS-TRIBUNE // MYMERIDIANPRESS.COM // 04.29.16
One smile at a time Meridian girl overcoming cancer at age 3
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earing a sparkly pink headband in her cropped hair, 3-year-old Eloise Lawrence ran around the park with her five siblings last week, pausing to gently pet a shy Chihuahua. With her rosy cheeks and easy smile, Eloise showed no sign, other than her short hair, that she had been undergoing chemotherapy for almost a year. Last spring, the Meridian family watched their daughter’s spunk mysteriously wane. For two months she had flulike symptoms. She lost her energy, her appetite, and even her will to get off the couch when she needed to use the bathroom.
by Holly Beech
hbeech@mymeridianpress.com © 2016 MERIDIAN PRESS
“We could not get anybody to listen to us. They just kept saying, oh, she’s got the flu, oh she’s got a virus, she’ll be fine, she’ll bounce back,” Jenica Lawrence, Eloise’s mom, said. Finally, after broken blood vessels appeared all over Eloise’s legs, a medic at a quick-care clinic told the family to go to the hospital immediately. In the emergency room, Jenica finally understood what might be wrong with her daughter. “I cornered this poor nurse, and I made her sit down next to me, and I said, does my baby have cancer? And she just started crying. She took my hand and she said, there’s a really good chance,” Jenica said, pausing to wipe away tears. “And I just lost it, because, she’s 2-and-a-half, you know? It was hard.” Eloise was diagnosed with a blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The doctor stayed with the family for three hours that Sunday night, Jenica said, to answer questions or to just sit with them in silence. In the days that followed, Eloise underwent surgery to get a port in her chest for chemotherapy. She was poked and drugged and hooked up to monitors. But her dad, Erik Lawrence, said, she had few complaints. As she started to feel better, she insisted on wearing tutus during chemo appointments and became “like a celebrity,” Jenica said, at the St. Luke’s pediatric oncology center. “The worst possible things, and she still, almost every time, had a smile on her face,” she said. During the exhaustive months of treatment, the Lawrences tried to give their other five children the love and attention they needed. During that time, they adopted two foster children, becoming a family of eight. Now the six kids are ages 3 through 9, and they’ve been “champions through all of this,” Jenica said.
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Please see Smile, page 9
Greg Kreller/MP
Erik Lawrence holds up his daughter Eloise, 3, while playing at Meridian’s Chateau Park on April 21. Eloise was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at 2-and-a-half and is currently in remission.
LOCAL Pioneer News Group, parent company of the Meridian Press and the Idaho PressTribune, is sealing the deal to buy the Kuna Melba News, a weekly newspaper based in Kuna.
C M Y K
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SCHOOLS The West Ada school board has selected Rene Ozuna out of four candidates to fill the zone 5 trustee seat vacated by Russell Joki.
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LOCAL
OPINION
The Meridian Police Department and the city of Meridian have set up a formal, safe exchange site for those who are exchanging goods bought from another individual online.
Who should pay for magistrate court services? Ada County mayors and the county commissioners have submitted letters with each side’s opposing view.
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