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Mother and Daughter Battle Brain Cancer
11/19/08 - 09:47 PM
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Megan Albright - bio

Altha, Fla:

In the small community of Altha you’re considered family whether or not blood ties you together.

“Most everybody here was raised here and knows everybody by name,” said Altha Police Chief James Baggett.

Now that large extended family is coming together to help out two of it’s members through a very difficult time in their lives.It has been a tough couple of years for the Keel family.  33 year old Tracey spent the past year battling breast cancer.  She thought she was in remission, but when she went to her doctor’s appointment she found out she had brain cancer.  The day after she finished that treatment her seven year old daughter Emily was diagnosed with brain cancer as well.

“She told her mom she was having problems seeing the TV.  That’s when they noticed something was going on.  They took her to her doctor then down to Shands and they told her she had a tumor on her brain,” recalls Baggett.

Emily attends the Altha School, but instead of spending her days in class with her friends she’ll be spending many of them in Gainesville at Shands Hospital.

“She starts her first treatment on December 1, which also happens to be her 8th birthday,” said family friend Sarah Eagleston.

Despite their battle mother and daughter are in good spirits, something those who know them say is very characteristic.

“She has a very big heart.  She loves those kids.  She lives every day for those kids.  She’s just trying to survive herself.  Having to go through something like this with her child and not even being up to par herself, it’s rough,” Eagleston explains.

Emily is expected to be released from Shands this weekend or early next week, but she’ll have to continue going to Gainesville for treatment.  In order to help this family out the community is holding a cookout this Saturday, November 22 at the Town Hall in Altha.  They’ll start serving plates at 10:30 that morning and continue until they’re all gone.  It’s $6 a plate and the proceeds all go the the Keel family.

If you can’t make it this weekend there’s another cookout on December 6 at the Wildcat’s Den on Highway 71 in Altha.  They’ll begin serving those plates at 9:30 in the morning.

If neither one of those dates work for you but you’d still like to help this family out you can go to any Superior Bank and donate to an account set up in Emily Keel’s name. 

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