Issue date: 4/2/07 Section: News

Whitney Martin - THE BATTALION Tacey Raulerson laughs before bedtime in her home. The pillowcase is a gift from her grandmother, who is the superintendent at Sulphur Springs Independent School District. The school district administration signed words of encouragement on the pillowcase before Tacey underwent surgery to remove her left eye in August.

It is 7:45 a.m. in February, and most mothers of first-graders are bustling their children into the car, driving them to school on their way to work.

Tammy Raulerson's morning is different.

She is up early, at her computer, quietly answering the hundreds of e-mails that flood her inbox every day and trying to catch up on the laundry and house cleaning that seems to pile up despite her best efforts.

As Tammy tiptoes around the house, her 7-year-old daughter Tacey lies resting in her bedroom and will not be going to school today. She is getting as much sleep as she can to strengthen her body.



Tacey was born with retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer that affects the eyes. Her right eye was removed when she was 9 months old, and last August - just a few days after starting first grade - Tacey underwent surgery to remove her left eye.

The surgery likely will not be her last. Doctors say the chance of Tacey developing future cancerous tumors is extremely high. Despite the pain and darkness that has filled their daughter's short life, the Raulersons are neither bitter nor depressed. If anything, they are grateful.

"Every day I just think, 'God is in control,'" Tammy said. "We love Tacey so much, and she is an incredible little girl."

Tacey completed her latest chemotherapy treatment Jan. 30. The treatment was intended to stop the spread of cancer cells into the rest of her body, but the toxic chemicals diminish her immune system's ability to fight infection. As a result, she is often secluded in her home.

"Her blood count got so low that she couldn't go to school anymore," said Michael Raulerson, Tacey's father. "Plus, on the days she has chemo, she feels pretty bad. She takes a steroid and medicine to control nausea, so she spends quite a bit of time sleeping on those days."

A year ago, Tacey blended in with the other kids at Rock Prairie Elementary, playing hopscotch and tackle-football at recess and giggling about boys during sleepovers with her friends.

"In kindergarten, no one knew that she only had one eye, because she didn't tell anyone," Tammy said. "They noticed that she sat closer to the board because she couldn't see as well, but the kids had no idea."

Tammy walks into Tacey's room at 10 a.m. and starts the slow process of waking her only child.

"It takes a while for her to get going in the morning," Tammy said. "She likes to sit in my lap for awhile."

On a good day, the morning routine goes rather smoothly: Tacey wakes up and washes her prosthetic eyes with special soap wipes. She eats a bowl of cereal and brushes her teeth. If she is going out that day, her mother helps her get dressed. If not, she plays all day in her glittery snowflake pajamas and high-heeled Sleeping Beauty slippers.

"I like to play here at my house because I know my way around," Tacey said. "I've been playing here for so long, and my friends can come over and I don't bump into things or need to use my cane."

One unexpected relief is that Tammy and Tacey need not fuss over their hair. Tacey has none after chemotherapy, and Tammy shaved her hair in support of her daughter.

At home, Tacey excitedly escapes to a pretend land with her astounding collection of dolls, kitchen toys and stuffed animals that spill out of her toy boxes and crowd every corner of the living room.

Bad days do not go nearly as smoothly. Some days, she feels overwhelming physical pain in her legs or intense sickness because of her treatment. Some days Tacey is just too tired to play because her chemo robs her of energy. On days like these, Tammy devotes all of her time to comforting Tacey in any way she can.

But every day - good or bad - starts out the same - in the comfort of her mother's arms.

Not the life she imagined

This is not the life that Tammy pictured nearly 21 years ago. That winter, Tammy Bolton was a freshman at Texas A&M and had no idea what a chance date would hold in store for her. During an ice storm that canceled classes on campus, a pastor who had known Tammy for years introduced her to Michael Raulerson, the director of the Association of Baptist Students.

"The joke is that Michael lost a coin toss between him and another guy to come meet me," laughed Tammy.

After their first meeting and then attending the same singles retreat, Michael and Tammy felt a connection. The next day, Michael invited Tammy to join him for lunch.

"He took me out to lunch to tell me that he couldn't date me because of his leadership position on campus with the Association of Baptist Students," Tammy said. "He didn't want to compromise that by dating a member."

But the next day, he called her back.

"He asked me out again! And two days later, we were engaged," Tammy said. "We were led by God and our faith to be together, so I said yes."

They were married in June 1986, and today, both work for A&M.

Tammy is a lecturer in the College of Education and Human Development and teaches online classes in order to be at home with Tacey. Michael is a staff member in the Department of Chemistry.

Tacey is part of Tammy's job, too.

"Since I teach classes online," she says, "I can do a little more work with her in my lap."

Growing up blind

By mid-afternoon at the Raulerson home, Tacey prepares for her daily lessons taught by teachers who come to her house. One instructor is practicing with Tacey on how to use her cane to navigate around obstacles and uneven terrain. Tacey is also learning to read Braille, a system used by the blind where raised dots represent letters and can be read by touch.

"We were really lucky to have had even limited vision for six years," Tammy said. "If you tell her green, she can visualize it. In fact, she can still write because she remembers the letters and how to write them."

Then, another teacher comes to Tacey's house to teach her the first-grade curriculum that she would be studying in her classroom at Rock Prairie. Tacey cannot quickly answer which subject is her favorite to learn, but at last she settles on science. A couple of days a week, Tacey takes piano and voice lessons.

"Her voice teacher and she have a group called 'Sugar and Spice,' and they go to nursing homes to sing sometimes," Tammy said.

It is during these mini-recitals and other special events that Tammy gets to practice her own passion - photography.

An avid photographer, Tammy fills Tacey's website with hundreds of photos that chronicle nearly every occasion of her daughter's life with a professional quality camera.

Her hobby is rife with irony. It was while taking pictures of an infant Tacey that Tammy became aware that something was wrong.

Cat's-eye

"It started showing up when Tacey was 6 weeks old," Tammy said. "Instead of a red-eye reflection in the pictures, there would be a white reflection in her eye. But then from a different angle it would be red again. I asked a photographer, and he said it was called 'cat's-eye' and was nothing to worry about."

The reassurance she felt did not last long. Soon, Tammy started noticing more problems with Tacey's eyes.

"I noticed that I could almost see through her pupil," Tammy said. "I thought that was definitely not normal. Then, when Tacey was 5 months old, her right eye started wandering. We called her doctor, and he said it was probably a lazy eye and they wouldn't be able to do anything about it until she was older. At 7 months old, it was really obvious to me that something was very wrong."

The day after Tammy's first Mother's Day, an ophthalmologist delivered the bad news: Tacey had retinoblastoma in both eyes. The condition is rare, and Tacey was his second case of this form of cancer.

The doctor said the disease would spread to Tacey's brain through the optic nerve and kill her if left untreated.

The extent of Tacey's disease was shocking.

"When she was diagnosed, a large tumor took up half of her left eye and there were several smaller tumors," Tammy explained. "There was also seeding in the gel of her eye, and the retina was almost totally detached. The right eye was not much better. The tumor took up one quarter of (right) her eye, with several smaller tumors, but there was no seeding."

Without treatment, patients with retinoblastoma usually die within the first four years of life, said Dr. James Bolling, chairman of ophthalmology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. Treatment may mean blindness or the loss of one or both eyes. Still, patients who survive treatment are at risk for other cancers that show up in other parts of the body.

"Six weeks after her diagnosis, they knew they couldn't save Tacey's left eye," Tammy recalled. "Looking back, we should have immediately taken both eyes, but the doctors tried desperately to save her right eye."

At 9 months, Tacey underwent surgery to remove her left eye and began aggressive chemotherapy to battle the cancer in her right eye.

Treatment makes her more ill

The treatment seemed as bad as the disease. One of the cocktails of chemicals that doctors pumped through Tacey's body caused severe leg pains. Another ran a high risk of creating bladder problems. Still another caused extreme nightmares.

"I used to have nightmares about my Bouncing Tigger that talked," Tacey said, recalling the bad dreams. "So after that, I could only have stuffed animals that didn't talk. That's the first thing I ask when people give me toys is 'Does it talk?'"

At 13 months old, Tacey finished her first round of chemo, and she was tumor-free for four months. But tumors began forming in her eye again, so she went back for more treatment shortly afterward.

She was scheduled to remain on chemo for nine months, but her organs rejected the treatment and it became toxic to her system. For the next year and a half, the Raulersons tried laser therapy, cryotherapy, chemotherapy and finally radiation therapy, which seemed to have astonishing results.

"We went for two years with no new tumors," Tammy said. "We were pleased with the radiation and were confident that we had gotten all of the cancer."

More problems at Easter

Last April, however, it became evident that all was not well with her daughter. That Easter, Tammy and Michael noticed that Tacey was groping for toys. During a routine eye exam under anesthesia the next week, doctors discovered that Tacey's eye was hemorrhaging. The specialists at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston monitored her condition, but it did not improve over several weeks. In fact, Tacey developed glaucoma and required surgery to remove pressure building up in her eye. At this point, the Raulersons did not know whether the bleeding in Tacey's eye was caused by her treatment or whether the cancer was back.

After six years of frequent visits to the hospital, the Raulersons had forged friendships with Tacey's medical staff, and it was from friend and doctor Evelyn Paysse that they received the bad news.

"Dr. Paysse had treated Tacey since she was a baby, so when she came into the waiting room to tell us the cancer was back, she just started crying," Tammy remembered. "She apologized for getting so emotional, but I told her to never be sorry for caring about my child."

The fact that the cancer had returned almost never happens, Tammy said, and puts Tacey among the rarest of cases.

"She is setting the medical precedent," Tammy said. "Tacey was already special because she has it in both eyes."

"Had, mom,'' Tacey interjected. "I had it in both eyes." She giggled, making a joke at her own expense because she no longer has eyes.

Despite being weak, Tacey's sense of humor remained at full force and helped keep the family going. She is known as a prankster and enjoys playing jokes on unsuspecting visitors.

Recently, a visitor found Tacey in front of the television. The Disney tweener show "That's So Raven!" was on.

"Oh my gosh Raven, that is such a cute outfit you're wearing!" Tacey said, as if she could see the show. The visitor was confused. Tacey continued, "I just love that purple shirt."

Tacey cannot watch the show, but she can listen. And she has memorized nearly every episode and can remember which of Raven's outfits Tammy had described to her. The joke always ends with Tacey rolling with laughter and asking if her visitor was surprised.

Family time remains important

Tacey's dad returns from work at 5:30 p.m., and the family sits down to eat dinner together. Like any family, they talk about their days and their plans. Lately, the conversations at the Raulerson table have centered on Aggie basketball, their upcoming trip to Disney World and a new baby joining their home.

"For 13 years I had been told that I could not have children," Tammy said. "My doctors said that even if I could get pregnant, I wouldn't be able to carry to term. We had just decided to adopt when I started suspecting I was pregnant with Tacey. Even in the delivery room, the doctor was like 'this is a miracle.'"

Because of the genetic nature of bilateral retinoblastoma, Tammy and Michael are at risk for having more children with cancer. Retinoblastoma affects approximately one in 15,000 live births, but both Tammy and Michael carry a genetic mutation in their chromosomes that renders the tumor-suppressing gene ineffective. Unwilling to subject a future child to the extreme medical procedures that Tacey has undergone, the Raulersons have decided to adopt.

"I hate to put Tacey through all of this, but if that's what it takes to save her life, we'll do it," Tammy said. "But we couldn't knowingly put another child in that position. We've talked about it as a family, and now that Tacey is doing better, we want to grow our family through adopting."

After dinner, Tacey and her dad spend quality time reading together, listening to music or going over her school work. By 10 p.m., she is in bed, unless Michael and Tacey are engrossed in a Harry Potter novel. Then, she stays up as long as she can possibly remain awake, not wanting to miss one single detail.

Some nights are harder than others to get Tacey to settle into bed. She looks forward to returning to school, and her anticipation keeps her daydreaming when she should be sleeping. On the night before the Coach G Charity Bash on Feb. 3, Tacey did not go to sleep until midnight.

"I was just so excited," Tacey explained in her defense. "Since I was in isolation from my chemo during my birthday, the Charity Bash was like a party instead. I couldn't wait for all of the fun things we were going to do."

Late at night, dark and quiet settle over the Raulerson home. Michael and Tammy steal a few moments alone together to talk - but not too loudly, because Tacey has developed an incredible sense of hearing.

As they get ready for bed, their minds inevitably begin mapping out the plan for tomorrow.

But the Raulersons never know what tomorrow brings.

"Tacey has a high probability of having future solid tumors sometime in her lifetime," Tammy said. "She will get regular scans for the rest of her life to try to catch new cancers as soon as possible. This last chemo should've taken care of everything, but we don't know if the tumors ever escaped her eyes."

The uncertainty does not dictate their lives.

"I never know what's going to happen or who I'm going to meet next," Tacey said. "I love being like a celebrity and getting to make so many friends. I feel really lucky."

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