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"Free Portraits Make Children And Their Families Smile" - Tampa Tribune

December 09, 2007  |  Posted by Steve Kornacki

Tracey Saylor was still savoring her husband's victory over cancer - he had finally beaten non-Hodgkin's lymphoma into remission - when she learned the cause of the bulge on her daughter's nose and cheek.

"A rare, one-in-a-million" cancer, she says. "We'd just gotten over cancer with her dad … It's been a rough couple of years."

She smiles and hugs Kaitlyn, 15, during their portrait sitting with the nonprofit organization Flashes of Hope at All Children's Hospital. The program, which began in 2001 and is available in 20 cities across the country, is designed to provide special moments and memories to children and their families during their fights against cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

"This was fun," says Tracey Saylor, 37, of Holiday. "We got makeup before and they did my hair."

She rubs what little hair remains on her daughter's head, looks her in the eyes, and says, "It will grow back, honey."

Kaitlyn, better known as Katie, nods and they hug.

"This is a fabulous program for parents and kids to have memories of," Saylor says. "Hopefully, we can look back at these pictures one day and know it is all in the past."

"I liked it," adds Katie, who was attending Gulf High School when she was diagnosed in October. "But I got tired."

She's finishing a second round of chemotherapy; then it's off to Jacksonville for proton beam radiation next month to fight the olfactory neuroblastoma.

Five volunteers from the Aveda Institute of St. Petersburg applied makeup to family members, while photographers from the Thomas Bruce Studio in St. Petersburg created a studio in a second-floor hospital room and did the shooting.

"It is wonderful," says photographer Bruce Evensen. "It's like coming out of the closet with cancer, and I've met so many courageous people."

Joseph Gamble, a University of South Florida campus photographer - and director of the Tampa Bay chapter of Flashes of Hope - explains that the makeup, sittings, leather folios for two portraits, additional proofs and a CD of the images are all donated.

"And this hospital has really embraced it," Gamble says.

Nine children and their families were photographed Tuesday at the hospital, which began hosting the sessions in April.

"Even though this is a bad time right now for our daughter, this made us smile and take away the gloominess," says Jeri Cadwell, 25.

Jeremy Rogers spots their 17-month-old, Jaelyn Nicole Rogers, running between the makeup artists and photographers while she plays with them.

"Ain't no gloominess," says Rogers, 30, of Zolfo Springs. "She's running up and down the halls all the time; I think they put sugar in her chemo."

Jaelyn has a foot-long scar along the top of her head from surgery performed to do a biopsy and drain fluid from her rare brain tumor, anaplastic ependymoma.

But that doesn't stop her from dancing with Aveda volunteer Josh Rodriquez and giggling as she does her best Hannah Montana impersonation.

Sitting still for photos is a challenge. But her grandfather, Gerald Cadwell, gets his "Junebug" to sit with him long enough for a few shots.

Photographer Carol Walker gets her attention with a rattle. "Peek-a-boo!"

Jaelyn misses a beat, and then: "I see you!"

A photo is snapped as she grins with delight, and everyone in the room laughs. It's a keeper.

Go to www.flashesofhope.org for information. Reporter Steve Kornacki can be reached at (813) 731-8170 or skornacki@tampatrib.com.

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