Childhood Brain Cancer Brings 3 Ellicott City Mothers Together

Three Ellicott City children died in 15 months, leaving behind three mothers determined to support each other and the fight against childhood brain cancer.

Nearly three years after Christopher Sliker died – at age 3 – his mother, Lisa Sliker, along with Carol Herrmann, whose daughter Caroline died at age 14, and Rose Knight, whose son Ricky died at age 12, joined more than 100 people in Washington, D.C., Sunday to show support for each other and raise money for research at the Race for Hope. 

'Unabashedly in love'

“Our whole lives changed,” Knight said, sitting on a couch last week at Sliker’s home with Sliker and Herrmann.

Knight focused on the floor as she recounted the story of her son’s fight with glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM.  A healthy, active kid, Ricky was diagnosed in April of 2007 after a seizure. After radiation and chemotherapy treatments, Knight said, Rick was well enough in the fall to play football with the Elkridge Hurricanes.

“He was healthy during the whole thing,” she said, until January, when his tumor returned. He died in June of 2008. 

“It’s weird,” Knight said, “but I think that was kind of the best year of our lives … you go from the things everybody worries about every day to not paying any attention to that.

“We were unabashedly in love with each other.”

A few houses down in the Rockburn neighborhood of Ellicott City, Herrmann’s 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, was dealing with the same kind of tumor – common in older adults, but unusual in children.

Caroline was diagnosed in September of that year. Because of the location of her tumor, Herrmann said, she had been temporarily paralyzed and unable to talk.

“We’d get so excited when she could move her thumb,” she said. “I remember sometimes I had to remind myself that this is not all there is.” There was still the cancer.

'He looked fabulous'

Caroline came home from treatment for Halloween that year and, being neighbors, ran into Ricky. “I’d say ‘Caroline, look, there’s Ricky. Look at him.’ He looked fabulous,” she said of the boy who had been dealing with the same type of cancer as her daughter.

“Caroline was not fine,” she said, choking up briefly.

Like Ricky, Caroline had a brief reprieve and was able to return to one of her favorite activities – swimming at the Watermont Pool. She was gearing up to begin the ninth grade.

“She went to Mount De Sale for about a week,” Herrmann said, “then she had to come home … so quickly ….”

The tumor returned. Caroline died in December of 2008.

Unlike Ricky, whose tumor was on the surface of his brain, Caroline’s tumor was attacking her brain stem, the area of the brain responsible for movement as well as vital functions such as the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

But, Herrmann she said, “It was a year that our family spent so much time together.” Her sons would return from college every weekend and the family would play games … Bananagrams, Scrabble, Uno.

“She loved games." 

'A death sentence'

Sliker and Herrmann became friends before either child was ill – Caroline was “buddies” with Sliker's middle child, Kelly, through a program that paired older and younger students. 

“We did school things together,” Sliker said. “We swapped Christmas gifts.”

And all three women attend and live in the same neighborhood.

“When Caroline passed away, we were all there, part of the grieving,” Silker said. Two months later, her son Christopher was diagnosed with a different type of brain tumor, a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, or DIPG.

This tumor entwines itself in the brain stem, making it inoperable.

“It’s a death sentence,” Sliker said, sitting on her living room floor.

“Immediately these two families, who had already walked the path, put their grief aside and stepped in to help us,” Sliker said of Herrmann and Knight. Herrmann would watch Sliker's two other children when Christopher went to Johns Hopkins for treatment. Both women brought food and comfort during Christopher’s ordeal.

“We packed in as much life as we could,” Sliker said of Christopher’s six-month battle with brain cancer. There were vacations to New York, Florida, the Poconos.

Despite the radiation treatment, the chemotherapy, the shunt in his head, which was opened to relieve pressure, things were different on Aug. 3, 2009. “It was the first time he was scared,” Sliker said. 

“He went in Monday morning for surgery and he never woke up,” Sliker said. He spent five days in the hospital on life support. 

Herrmann walked by and stroked Sliker’s head as she described Christopher’s last five days.

“Ultimately,” she said, “we had to make a decision to take him off of life support.” A parade of friends and family came through the hospital to say goodbye and Sliker's other children were briefed on what was ahead.

“On Saturday morning we gave him his last bath, said our last prayers, and with the very last word of the last prayer, he took his last breath,” she said. “And with the last hug, his heart stopped.

“Then began the grieving process.”

The three women went, and continue to go through that process together, supporting each other and enlisting the help of friends family and others who have suffered the loss of children to brain cancers. 

In 2009, with help from friends, Herrmann organized Team Caroline to participate in the Race For Hope, a fundraiser for brain tumor research. In 2010, she went again, but this time, t-shirts were adorned with the faces of Ricky and Christopher.

“We all live in this community,” Herrmann said. People who are grieving Caroline are grieving Ricky and Christopher, too, and donating in all of their memories.”

This year about 120 people joined the women in the Race for Hope on May 6 with Team Caroline Ricky Christopher, and donated about $17,000.

The fundraising isn’t easy. Last week, on Sliker’s birthday, the women were assembling t-shirts, pamphlets and organizing carpools long after the sun went down. It takes an emotional toll, too.

“You feel guilty asking people to donate,” Sliker said. “You feel like people are saying ‘Oh, it’s them again. Shouldn’t they be past it? Are they still mourning?’”

They are.

“It doesn’t end,” Sliker said. "It doesn’t get better. It barely changes.”

Click here if you would like to learn more about these families, pediatric brain cancer, or if you wish to donate. Although the race is over, donations are still being accepted.