DAUGHTER DIAGNOSED WITH LEUKEMIA; MOTHER IN A BIND

This summer Candice Pitcock decided it was time for a change in her life.

A single mother, she packed up her two children, moved to Cape Girardeau from Dexter, and enrolled at Metro Business College.

Pitcock dreamed of becoming a medical secretary, a job that would allow her to support her children.

But, just days before classes were scheduled to start, Pitcock took her 2 1/2 year old daughter, Savannah Rouse to the emergency room. The little girl had been limping on one leg for a couple weeks prior to the hospital visit. On Labor Day weekend, she couldn't walk.

Doctors diagnosed Savannah with leukemia and moved her immediately to Children's Hospital in St. Louis, where she and her mother have been since.

Savannah is on a 2 1/2 year protocol to treat the leukemia. She finished the first 28-day cycle last week.

"They have given her drugs to kill off the leukemia," her mother explained. "And she is in remission. But she is still going to be here (at Children's Hospital) every week for six months."

Savannah turned 2 years old on June 1. Her four-year-old brother, Cody, has been staying with his godparents in Kentucky since Savannah became ill.

"She is probably the sweetest kid you would ever meet," her mother said. "Right now, when she is having the hardest time, she is so strong. And she tries hard to stay in a good mood."

Her mother, however, is worried.

"She has to be up here every week; that's the problem I don't really have a way to get here. And they don't want to send me home without any transportation."

Pitcock receives Medicaid, which is paying for the little girl's treatment. But Pitcock has no vehicle to travel from Cape Girardeau to the hospital.

Her mother has been providing transportation, but she lives an hour south of Cape Girardeau.

"If something happens, an hour is a long time to wait," said Pitcock. In Cape Girardeau, she said, it is a 45-minute walk to the hospital emergency room.

"If I keep a log, the leukemia society can reimburse me mileage and gas." But, she said, even if she sold everything she owns she couldn't purchase a dependable vehicle.

"I am really trying hard to start over. But I don't know what I'm going to do now."

For information, contact Children's Hospital social worker Lori Walker at 454-2241.