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The Story of Ellie
The Story of Ellie
The Story of Ellie
An Orange County princess is now an angel.
After months of battling Pineoblastoma, a rare, malignant brain tumor, Ellie Blaine, 2, passed away Sunday morning—leaving behind a legacy reached far beyond her Orange County home.
Ellie and her story have impacted thousands, both near and far. After her diagnosis in February, dozens of people donated so the family could have iPads to communicate since Ellie and father, Richard, traveled to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN for treatment while then 4-year-old Noah and pregnant mother Carly stayed home to welcome baby Sarah-Grace.
When the family sold t-shirts supporting Ellie, sales surpassed...
Erin Fines
The Story of Ellie
The Story of Ellie
As Diane Tweed looked around her Spotsylvania County living room, her eyes alighted on a dark blue sofa and gleaming oak side tables. But her mind’s eye saw a hospital bed, oxygen tanks and a pile of plastic pill bottles.
The last vestiges of her daughter’s battle with colon cancer had been removed shortly after her death in April, but the bittersweet memories lingered in the rooms where Erin Fines spent her final months.
GREAT LOVE, HEARTACHE
In the living room, Fines snuggled with her sons, desperate to spend as much time as possible with her young boys. In the adjacent screened-in porch, Fines drank coffee with her father each morning, finding moments of...
Law Enforcement
Three Amazing Ladies
Three Amazing Ladies
Joni Kanazawa pulled out her phone and stated scrolling through her contacts.
“I’m trying to figure out who can bring some Hugs,” she said.
Kanazawa looked around the room. “We’re short on love,” she laughed.
The fellowship hall of the Hollywood Church of the Brethren was actually brimming with affection—the tables were laden with candy, flags, ribbon, markers and stickers as more than 30 people assembled 210 goody bags for law enforcement officers.
But those goody bags included a poem, which named specific candy, such as “Lifesavers to remind you of the many times you’ve been one,” and “Mounds...
Three Amazing Ladies
Three Amazing Ladies
Three Amazing Ladies
Theresa Rasmussen is not an inactive person. Though she commutes to Alexandria every day for her job as a cartographer for the ARMY Corps of Engineers, she’s also an avid hiker as well as a landscape photographer. Which was why when she found a small, pea-sized lump below her collarbone, she immediately had it checked out by her doctor.
“My doctor didn’t think it was anything,” she says. “But she did a biopsy and it was breast cancer.”
The diagnosis was Stage 1, which Theresa refers to as “lucky.” Her cancer was a rare form called tubular, which means that although it was invasive, it was less aggressive.
“They call it well-differentiated,” she says. “Which means that it’s less likely to grow quickly or spread. If you’re going to have it...