April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
SARATOGA SPRINGS
Special Mass offers thanks for Emma's cancer recovery
Nurses from Albany Medical Center spoke to her peers and their parents at St. Clement's School in Saratoga Springs about Emma's cancer. They made the same presentation when she went to first grade.
"It felt good," Emma said of explaining her condition to her classmates. "Everybody understood it."
Now six years old and in short-term remission, Emma is looking forward to second grade and being a kid again - and her parents are full of gratitude for all the people who prayed for her, showed kindness and helped cover medical costs.
"We've been blessed by so many people in so many different ways," said Philip Spaeth, Emma's father. "It was very difficult to think of anything even remotely adequate" to express gratitude.
The Spaeths started with a Mass of Thanksgiving last month at their parish, St. Peter's in Saratoga, where Mr. Spaeth is music director.
Emma's condition began to show itself with joint pain in late 2009, when she was four. It took until the following March to diagnose her with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many immature lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell).
ALL weakens the immune system, so Emma had to leave school and avoid interacting with other children. Her brother, Henry, 17 months old at the time, had to follow the same restrictions to avoid infecting his sister.
The first few months of chemotherapy left Emma thin, pale and in need of blood transfusions, said her mother, Maria: "We were very close to losing her."
After Emma's diagnosis, St. Peter's parish, St. Clement's School and St. Francis of Assisi parish in Northville, where Mr. and Mrs. Spaeth grew up, held fundraisers and offered food, gifts, prayers and chores. Hundreds of people sent cards.
The Catholic communities raised $25,000 for costs not covered by insurance, including trips from the Spaeths' Northville home to Albany Medical Center. But prayers proved priceless, as the Spaeths were initially too shocked and numb to pray themselves.
"We knew we needed to pray, but we didn't know what to pray for," Mr. Spaeth said. "It's been a huge blessing to us to have so many people to help keep us going."
The family eventually rediscovered their dialogue with God, and Emma caught on: "We've spied her praying the Rosary a couple of times," Mrs. Spaeth said.
Emma talks to God and is eager to make her first reconciliation and communion. She told The Evangelist that receiving the Eucharist is a way to thank God for "everything: my health, my food and my clothing and all the people that I'm playing with. He stays with us all the time."
Plus, "after Mass, we get to go out to dinner."
The Spaeths' Mass of Thanksgiving was concelebrated by Revs. Dominic Ingemie and Matthew Wetsel, pastor and associate pastor of St. Peter's; Rev. Michael Cambi, former associate pastor; and Rev. Jay Atherton, associate pastor at St. Mary's in Ballston Spa and Emma's godfather. Deacon Brian Levine of St. Peter's assisted.
Father Ingemie had offered Emma the sacrament of the sick after her diagnosis. Since January 2011, she's been back in school; she finished chemotherapy this June and spent the summer attending camps at St. Clement's and Double H Ranch in Lake Luzerne, which serves children dealing with life-threatening illnesses.
The Spaeths also spent time at a cabin in the Adirondacks sponsored by Rosie's Love, a non-profit that helps families served by The Children's Hospital at AMC. The Make-a-Wish Foundation had sent the family to Disney World in 2010.
Mr. and Mrs. Spaeth help charity groups and focus on needs at AMC. "It's going to take a lifetime to give back what they gave to us," Mrs. Spaeth said.
Emma isn't producing any new cancer cells, but will need a few more years of treatment to kill sleeper cells. She'll continue seeing hematologists for years and oncologists the rest of her life. She goes to physical therapy for nerve damage from the chemotherapy.
Emma's odds of surviving now are about 90 percent, but the long-term side effects of her treatment are hard to predict. The treatment was part of a scientific study.
"We want to make sure that other children can learn from Emma's experience," Mrs. Spaeth said.
Emma's transitioning to a normal childhood and is "not the same as an average six-year-old," Mrs. Spaeth said. "She's certainly not innocent and she doesn't process things in a normal way you might expect."
She does play on swings, dress up as a princess or ballerina, sing and dance, bake with Henry and play catch with her dad.
"I can go places and do fun things," Emma said. "And just being outside feels good. I feel better."[[In-content Ad]]
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