Abbie Striplin and her family celebrated her younger brother’s birthday by taking a ride on the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad.
It’s a sunny July day. The journey aboard the steam-powered passenger train – one of the few remaining such modes of transportation in Washington – winds along the Chehalis River. It’s relaxing with its scenic views.
“We do it every birthday,” Abbie says with a sigh. “Every birthday.”
Her brother, Harrison, grins widely. His love for locomotives cannot be concealed even though he hasn’t said a word.
Abbie is sitting on one of the picnic benches lined up against the Dairy Dan Drive-In, nursing a milkshake. It feels like a summer day, the sun is bright and a light breeze makes the outside setting quite comfortable.
“But that’s okay,” says Abbie as she immediately perks up and suppresses her distaste for turn-of-the-century travel. “I don’t really mind it. It’s still better than last summer.”
Prior to ordering the milkshake, Abbie had a wide variety of flavors to choose from – she elected to go with the traditional chocolate. It’s good to have options.
This time last summer, her options consisted of staying at Seattle Children’s Hospital or the Ronald McDonald House. No matter which location she ultimately ended up at, she knew she was going to feel sick, tried or alone. Sometimes she hit the trifecta and all three would rear at the same time.
This was supposed to be the “fun summer” for Abbie. She was 17 and had just completed her junior year at W.F. West High School. It was the start of the three-month window before her senior year when she still would have some time before being required to figure out post-graduation life – whether that meant college or work or something else.
Abbie, however, was denied this.
She immediately knew something was wrong even before viewing her leg. The jolts of pain were intense.
Then came the visual.
“It was pretty horrific,” Abbie’s mom Elizabeth Striplin says. “She was fine one day and when she woke up the next her leg was so swollen. It was huge.”
A trip to the emergency room followed, but even that failed to produce any real answers.
She was transferred by ambulance from Centralia to Harborview in Seattle, and then from Harborview to Seattle Children’s Hospital, receiving little calcification at each stop. A biopsy was taken, but would take a month for the results to come back. The waiting was the hardest part, fear of the unknown as the family’s thoughts immediately defaulted to the worst-case scenario. But Elizabeth had an idea of what it was.
Cancer had an unfortunately long and devastating history on her mother’s side.
“It’s genetic. It starts off as thyroid cancer,” says Elizabeth about the disease, which also affects her sister and a few cousins. “My whole childhood, my mom had cancer. She was diagnosed when she was 18, but was actually born with it. It started off as thyroid cancer and, because she wasn’t diagnosed when she was born, it just spread.”
Elizabeth’s mother passed away at the age of 46.
She initially thought a similar situation was occurring with her daughter.
The diagnosis came back as non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Numerous biopsies and tests took place at Seattle Children’s and the University of Washington as the determination was being made to treat Abbie for child or adult cancer – the former was final verdict.
Five tumors were discovered. Surgeries followed, as well as lumbar punctures – a procedure that takes fluid from the spine through a needle.
“That one was awful,” Abbie says. “They keep you awake the entire time. That was by far the worst.”
She then endured six months of chemotherapy – once every 21 days. The summer ended up being a blur, but there was one bright spot.
“I got to lose all my hair,” Abbie declares with a laugh. “I didn’t mind that at all. I had fried my hair. It had been black, and then it was blue. I wasn’t happy with how it looked. So, losing it all gave me a new start with it. Although, now it’s curly and it wasn’t before. Oh well.”
While she didn’t attend school at the start of her senior year, Abbie was hardly forgotten by her fellow Bearcats. W.F. West High School arranged a fundraiser to help her family purchase food and two posters were made – one signed by students and the other by teachers – encouraging Abbie on a speedy recovery.
The Ronald McDonald House, which had turned into Abbie’s residency for the majority of her treatments, had orchestrated several teen-oriented outings, including trips to the Space Needle and Point Defiance Zoo’s Zoolights, but Abbie was unable to partake as she was either too sick or too tired.
This positive outreach by the school proved to be invaluable for Abbie.
Once it was determined the tumors were completely gone and radiation treatment was not needed, Abbie returned home in January. She eased back into home life and later started back at school.
“I actually surprised my friends (when I came back to school),” Abbie says. “No one knew I was showing up. They gave me hugs.”
They also planted the excitement a few months before her return of going to senior prom, a function she had not thought of before, but proved to serve as motivation during recovery and it now seemed like a reality.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it before, but all my friends were excited about it, so that got me excited,” Abbie says. “I ended up going with my dad. He took me there and walked me in. It was a good way to close out a rough year.”
Cancer free, Abbie will have routine catch-ups for the next five years. Lab work will also include a CAT scan every couple months. After five years, she will move from the Children’s Hospital to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
Next year she will return to W.F. West to get a second go around at her senior year.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Abbie says. “It’s actually been a great summer.”
