Girl With Terminal Cancer: Five-Year-Old Celebrates Fifth Birthday, Prom, And Wedding All In One


Lila May Schow is a five-year-old girl with the normal dreams every girl has. She dreams of birthdays, and perhaps even going to her prom. Unfortunately, she also has neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer of the nerve tissue. Over the last three years, she’s tolerated numerous chemotherapy treatments, blood transfusions, and more than nine surgeries. Sadly, the doctors are out of options, and the sweet child unfortunately is on borrowed time, according to ABC Channel 6.

Ryan Schow, her doting father, wants to make the best of the time that they have left, as Lila may not get to go to her dreamed-of prom or have a big wedding some day. The idea for a large party on Lila May’s behalf came from her mother, Heidi Hall. Starting with a Facebook page over the last year, a movement swelled to make her fifth birthday — maybe her last — her best ever. So Stephanie Laur of Union Event Company and her “princess patrol” took over and made an old bank building, Butler Banking Building, into a dream castle for the night. Her father stated the following about his own princess, according to KATU News.

“We don’t know how much time we have left. and we have put up one hell of a fight. We just want to give her everything she deserves.”

Lila May Schow and Father Ryan Schow, Photo Courtesy Facebook
Lila May Schow and Father Ryan Schow, Photo Courtesy Facebook

Amazingly, most of the people — hundreds — who made her special party a combo birthday, prom, and wedding don’t even know Lila or her family. The world-wide community just came together to do something good for a special child. And special it was. People donated food, music, balloons, artwork, and even costumed actors. She also had a Cinderella-like dress to party in, including tap shoes she wore to dance with the special man in her life, her father. And Ryan Schow noted the following about his treasured daughter. “There’s always been something about her that really inspires people, and she’s inspired an army.”

At her party, Lila May danced an emotional dance with her father, one she may never get to do at a real prom or wedding which are so far out of reach. So her father, Ryan, even got down on one knee to ask her to marry her, and filled up at the event with tears of joy. “We’re not going to get the prom dance or daddy-daughter dance [at her wedding],” Ryan Schow indicated, and he stated that “[w]e did a father-daughter dance and I couldn’t contain myself.”

Lila hasn’t given up hope about her future, though, and when she met someone whose dog had cancer, she asked the owner if the dog had beaten cancer. The owner answered in the affirmative, and Lila responded that she “beat cancer too.” The link to Lila May’s fundraising page can be found here, which describes what she has endured and gives updates on her condition.

When someone’s life is on the line, what is really important can come sharply into focus. Channan Petrides, 22, is terminally ill and made the difficult but reasoned decision to turn down a chance to receive a new heart and lungs so that she could pursue the items on her bucket list, according to an article in the Inquiistr.

[Photos Courtesy Facebook]

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