By Kaitlin Hoskins, News Editor
Rozlyn Patience Greene’s time on Earth was far too short, but those who met her — even for a moment — instantly loved her.
“Her nurses fell in love with her immediately,” said Lauren Greene, Rozyln’s mother. “Doctors, nurses, staff members, everyone just loved her.”
Rozlyn, who was nine years old when she died of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), was the typical little girl. She loved unicorns, rainbows and anything that sparkled. She was known for her signature large hair bows and bubbly personality.
The day before her family learned she was sick, she was doing cartwheels and playing on a trampoline.
“When you are a parent to five kids, you kind of shrug some things off,” Lauren said.
“We had no idea anything was seriously wrong,” said Ben Greene, Rozlyn’s father. “You know with kids, they have growing pains and Rozlyn was a little bit of drama queen… I didn’t think it was serious.”
“She really was a little diva,” Lauren said while laughing. “All of our kids are athletic. Sometimes they get hurt or sore and we give them Ibuprofen. When she said her leg was hurting, we didn’t realize just how serious it was.”
Rozlyn started complaining of leg pain on December 8, 2018. After the pain did not fade on December 9, Lauren called Etowah Pediatrics, where Rozlyn was a patient. The office was closed for the weekend, but office staff checking phone calls advised Lauren to take Rozlyn to the emergency room immediately.
“There was something in me, that ‘mom instinct’, like that gut feeling,” Lauren said. “I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but that feeling was there.”
Once at the emergency room of Gadsden Regional Medical Center, the staff brought Rozlyn to the triage area to assess her situation.
“They were asking a ton of confusing questions,” Lauren said. “I was super confused about the questions, and they were just asking so many of them. They left the room and came back and said they needed to draw blood. I called Ben immediately because I was like ‘they are asking all of these questions that I don’t even know how to answer.’ I said, ‘you need to come up here’ and he was there in like two seconds.”
Not long after Ben arrived, Lauren’s phone rang. It was Dr. Ben Hester at Etowah Pediatrics.
“He asked if the doctor has been in yet,” Lauren said. “I told him ‘no’ and then the doctor came in right then. Dr. Hester said, ‘you need to listen to everything he says, and you can call me back.’”
The emergency room doctor came in and said something no one ever wants to hear, especially about their eight-year-old daughter.
“They came in and said she had cancer,” Lauren said. “They said ‘we think that she may have an abscess in her leg, or she has cancer.’”
Rozlyn’s white blood cell count was elevated and, as her parent would find out later, her numbers were climbing by the hour.
“It just floors you,” Ben said.
“I hadn’t had time to really Google much of it,” Lauren said. “My Google searches were about how to relieve leg cramps…”
The Greene’s waited for another blood test’s results. Then not long after being told it could be an abscess or it could be cancer, a doctor entered the room and said that Rozlyn had Leukemia.
“I was startled,” Lauren said. “I think I yelled at the doctor. I really don’t know if I did. I told them I wanted a second opinion and I said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ I told them I wanted to go to Children’s Hospital, but they had already begun the transfer.”
According to Ben and Lauren, the next several days were a whirlwind of activity. Rozlyn’s white blood cell count was at 25,000 the first draw at Gadsden Regional. On the second draw the number had risen to 75,000. By the time the family was at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham a few short hours later, her count had risen to 90,000, and three days later, the count had reached 160,000.
Once at Children’s Hospital, Ben and Lauren had doctors explain in basic terms that there are two types of Leukemia — a “good kind” and a “bad kind”. Unfortunately for sweet Rozlyn, she had what the doctors called “the bad kind”.
With the “bad kind” of Leukemia, also known as AML, Rozlyn’s chances of survival were slim.
“Doctors told our nurses not to get attached to Rozzy,” Lauren said. “They said because she had less than a one percent chance of surviving. But all of the nurses and doctors loved her immediately. How could they not? She was so easy to fall in love with and no one could resist.”
On December 14, 2018, only five days after being diagnosed, Rozlyn’s heart stopped. Medical staff administered CPR and after five agonizing minutes, Rozlyn was brought back.
“We spent a week and a half in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and another week and a half in the Special Care Unit,” the couple said.
It was at Children’s Hospital that the couple realized how little people knew about childhood cancer.
“People don’t understand,” Ben said. “Not only is there the childhood cancers, because there’s a million just kid cancers. But kids can also get adult cancer. That’s why it’s so sad how little funding goes into it. The funding for research on childhood cancers and treatments come from foundations like ours and a million other little foundations started from parents whose kid have or had cancer.”
The Greene family started The Rozzy Foundation when Rozlyn was still a patient in Children’s Hospital. They were going to make masks with fun patterns for the children like Rozlyn who had to wear a mask to reduce the risk of infections.
Rozlyn never really improved, health-wise, during her treatment process. She was a test subject, and her case was study material for oncologists and hematologists around the world. She was a patient at Children’s Hospital and at some points also St. Jude’s Hospital, but she had the brightest minds in medicine from around the world trying to come up with an effective treatment plan that ended with a happy outcome.
Unfortunately, for the Greene family, that plan never materialized. Instead, chemotherapy treatments damaged her gallbladder and other organs.
According to Ben and Lauren, chemotherapy was designed for adults and doctors play a guessing game with the correct dosage on children.
“After eight months of chemotherapy treatment, we received the news no family battling cancer wants to hear,” the couple said.
The doctors told the family that there was nothing else that could be done. None of the treatments worked and there were no others to try. The family was sent home with care instructions to help keep Rozlyn comfortable.
Rozlyn died, surrounded by dozens of people who loved her, on September 12, 2019. According to Lauren, Rozlyn’s last words on Earth were: “Do you guys see this?”
“I don’t know what she was seeing, but I thank God for it,” Lauren said.
After Rozlyn’s death, her parents decided to do what they could to make sure no other parent has to go through the feeling of having their hearts ripped out by their child dying of cancer.
The Rozzy Foundation holds a Rozzy Run in March (around Rozlyn’s birthday) and they advocate for businesses and governments “going gold” in September for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. The Greene family raises awareness throughout the year, as well.
To donate to The Rozzy Foundation, visit TheRozzy.com.
Editor’s Note: The Messenger is partnering with The Rozzy Foundation for the month of September. Inside this month’s newspapers, readers can find a special page or two that contains advertisements for sponsors and information on Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. At the end of September, The Messenger is donating all profit from the special pages to The Rozzy Foundation. At the time of publication, The Messenger has raised over $2,000, thanks to the generosity of the featured sponsors.