Family loses daughter; finds way to give back

When 17-year-old Emily Field learned in 2008 that she had Ewing's Sarcoma, her parents, Tammy and Craig Field, had little inkling of how their lives would change.

Emily had injured her back while baby-sitting a young cousin. The back injury merely masked an aggressively growing cancer. Emily unexpectedly lost her fight with cancer on Nov. 22, 2008, but her parents were determined that her legacy would live on by helping other families in similar situations.

"Emily would see other children at Brenner and ask, ‘Why are they always by themselves?' or ‘Why are they on the computer at night?'" recalled her mother. "I had to explain that many parents have to go back to their families or to their jobs. They can't stay up here every day and every hour."

In particular, Emily was affected by a grandmother who stayed with a fellow patient but could not afford to go out and get meals. She would ask for any leftovers that Emily or her mother did not want.

Emily also noted, her mother said, that her father's work route with Duke Energy took him right by the hospital on his way home to Climax to care for her younger brother, Daniel.

Helping other families became a project that occupied Emily and Craig Field during the last weeks of her life. She wanted to ask people to send donations so that families could get gift cards for such basic essentials as gas, snacks or even parking fees.

She died after a headache prompted a return to the hospital, where she had a stroke within hours. The words "strength, courage and dignity" became the rallying cry for Emily's memory and the bedrock for the Emily's Kids Foundation established in her memory.

"She showed us how to behave," Craig Field said.

In October, Emily's Kids Foundation officially got started with its first board meeting. Board members asked to serve are what Craig Field said were "Emily-approved" before the Foundation even began.

Dr. Doug Ririe, an associate professor of pediatric anesthesiology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, worked with Emily during her hospital stays and serves on the board of directors.

"It's a fact that the relatively simple things can make a big difference for these families," Ririe said. "Even if they have health insurance, they need so much."

The foundation collects donations, which it turns into gift cards and parking passes. The cards are distributed to the physicians and clinics to distribute to families needing assistance. Need is based on the discretion of the medical team and the availability of the cards. Daily incidentals of having a child in the hospital with cancer add up to astronomical figures, Tammy and Craig Field said.

Mary Price's daughter, Holly Tilley, died of acute myeloid leukemia at age 18 on May 4, 2008. Price met the Fields at Brenner Children's Hospital at Wake Forest Baptist and became friends. She designed the Web site for Emily's Kids Foundation. Price knows all about cost issues.

"We peaked out at $2 million in 14 months in medical costs. With our insurance, we owe 30 percent of that figure. What brought me to my knees was not this huge amount which at first mortifies you and then becomes a joke,'' Price said.

"What got to me was the day that I got to the parking gate and didn't even have $4. I sat there and sobbed at the window. The parking attendant, a guy we had gotten to know with all of our trips and really liked, took pity on me and just asked that I pay him the next time through," she said.

Price praised the Fields for the effort to establish the foundation.

"With a lot of foundations, there is administrative overhead, but with this one, 100 percent of the contributions go right to the families who need it," Price said. "I went from spending $60 a month in gas to $900 to $1,200 in gas because I had to come back and forth from the hospital in Winston-Salem to our home (in Greensboro). I put 48,000 miles on my car in 14 months."

In addition to distributing the meal vouchers, gift cards and parking passes at Brenner Children's Hospital, the foundation is meeting with pediatric cancer departments in Durham, Asheville and in South Carolina in hopes of expanding the program.

"Brenner and God gave us 11 more months with Emily. We want to give back," Craig Field said. "We can't send her to college any more, but we can do this. It's the right thing to do."

Cyoung9@triad.rr.com

For more information, visit www.emilyskidsfoundation.org