Blog Tour - Never Goodbye by Kerri Williams

 

 

 



If you had one chance to be with your soul mate, would you fight for it?

Sometimes the hardest fight isn't finding love, sometimes its fighting against the ticking clock of your life.

Stalked by the shadow of a foreboding disease, seventeen year old, Harper Kennedy finds herself starting a new life in Albany Missouri. With a ticking time bomb, a wall of quotes, a shell of a father and a brother who has no one else, Harper tries to get life in order for those she may be leaving behind.

But fate is cruel when it delivers temptation in the form of
Vaun Campbell into her life; Vaun who is kind and sweet and completely out of her league on so many levels. How can Harper find love only to have it ripped away so soon? How can she put Vaun, who has faced more than his own fair share of loss and grief in the past, through all that again?

…How can she not?

Vaun Campbell has been to hell and back again after losing his mother. He has seen the way disease destroys the ones he loves…has seen them fade before his eyes. He never thought he’d find someone to bring the sunshine back to his life until he laid eyes on Harper; the graceful girl he watched float across the dance floor, who stole a little piece of his heart forever.

So Harper must fight for more than just her life, she must fight for her little brother, her father and for Vaun; who promises her a future.

 

Some might say I shouldn’t be alive today…I like to think that I’m exactly where I should be!

I’m a cancer survivor. A very lucky and thankful survivor.

I had to fight hard and go through more than most teenagers and I hope I reflected some of the emotion into Harpers story. But firstly, let me tell you a little about my fight against non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

I was a typical teenager, 11 years old and just started high school and liking boys.

I loved running and one day during a track run my groin began to hurt. Nothing outrageously out of the norm for a runner who didn’t stretch well and I put it down to a strain. I had a lingering cold, just like normal kids in the mountains, but what wasn’t normal was the lump in my groin. At eleven I didn’t know it shouldn’t be there. I thought it was just a gland, no biggy. I was very wrong.

I went on for weeks with this cold and antibiotics, I and my children have been through them just this winter. The only difference was, this wasn’t just a cold.

My last visit to the doctor, he was placing me on stronger drugs and asked if there was anything else bugging me and that’s when I said those three dreadful words…’My lump hurts.’

You can imagine the look between my mother and the doctor. From there it all happened quickly and was quite scary. I was rushed after hours for an Ultrasound and then straight to the Hospital. I didn’t even get to go home and grab Pyjamas, a book or anything. The very next day I was shipped to Campbelltown Childrens Hospital for more tests. Four scans and loads of needles later lying in a cold, hard hospital bed I remember my Dad coming into the room, his eyes bloodshot and he was crying. That’s when I learned I had two weeks to live.

You couldn’t get much crappier odds then that.

I cry now thinking of my Dad. For my parents who had their own pain. As a mother now, it’s more heartbreaking then going through it myself.

I have no idea why, but they started me on aggressive Chemo anyway, denial maybe, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now either, because it saved my life.

I went through endless days of being sick, I would get sick as soon as I entered the hospital which was all in my head, but tell an 11 year old that. The smell for many years still made me sick. Scans, needles, drips, doctors and nurses. Day in, day out. That was my life and my monster. But you know what hurt me the most? Losing my hair.

Pfft. Sounds ridiculous, right. But imagine a teenage girl with long brown hair who attracted boys turning into a girl with no hair and was dying. Yeah I had beat the clock, but essentially, that’s what I was…a dying girl fighting for a little bit of normal.

Needless to say, I beat that clock, beat it to pulp. I have had a couple of scares since, but I’m still kicking it strong and even showed all the specialist wrong by having two wonderful and gorgeous girls of my own after they swore I would not be able to have children. Although hubby thinks he is Superman and I let him.

He is another story all together, he is my Vaun. I met Michael when I was sixteen at a party and let’s just say, from then on we have been living out a dream. He didn’t care about odds, illness or my lack of child bearing capabilities, he wanted me. He loved me. And so, here I am, surrounded by love, disease free and using it all in a book for you to read. My fight against the monster and my survival with love is all there for you to read mixed in with a great dash of fiction.

Since writing this I have found a beautiful boy who is fighting his own monster and his family need our help. So I’m donating 50 cents in every e-book and $1.00 in every print to go to Chase and his family for as long as it works. His story I have added after mine. Show him the love too.

I hope you enjoy my story and I look forward to hearing your feedback and reviews.

Love, Kez

 

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Chase Michael Stooksbury was born 6/10/07. He weighed 5 pounds 10 oz. He was 7 weeks premature and was transferred to Children's Mercy Hospital where he was on a ventilator for the first 5 days of his life. His mom was finally able to hold him on day 5. He was able to come home on day 10.

He was a happy, healthy, active little boy despite being a bit small for his age. At age 2, Chase and his older brothers both caught H1N1 flu. Jeffery and Trey were better in 2 weeks. Chase was still battling high fevers. One Saturday in November, Chase woke up unable to walk well and still had a high fever. After a little fluids, TLC and some rest he was doing ok. The next day, he was unable to at all. He was taken to the local (small town) hospital and treated for pneumonia. After 3 days, Chase had gotten worse. His physician, Dr. Angelia Martin, ran more tests. So Chase's mom, Tera and her friend Miranda Floyd waited. The tests had a couple of possible diagnoses: rheumatoid arthritis or leukemia. He was admitted to the small hospital while Dr. Martin consulted colleagues at Children's Mercy hospital. He was soon transferred to Children's Mercy for more tests.

The tests found a mass on his adrenal gland, spinal column, and billions of micro tumors engulfed his tiny little body. The diagnosis was neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma is a rare disease in which a solid tumor (a lump or mass caused by uncontrolled or abnormal cell growth) is formed by special nerve cells called neuroblasts. Normally, these immature cells grow and mature into functioning nerve cells. But in neuroblastoma, they become cancer cells instead.

In comes Dr. Allen Gamis and his nurse Joy Bartholomew. They would see him through his chemotherapy regimen.

In the next few months Chase underwent stem cell harvest and transplant, chemotherapy, GCSF injections, radiation, surgery. These prompted many trips to Kansas City from Albany, MO via ambulance.

On Mother's Day 2010, Tera got the best mother's day present: He was FREE of disease. In February 2011, Chase was considered in remission.
 

He led a healthy and active life until May 15, 2013 when he began having problems walking again. (This literally happened over night!) He was diagnosed with stage 4 relapse Neuroblastoma with a mass on his spine and in his bone marrow. He was started on chemotherapy immediately. He was on one particular regimen for 2 months. When further tests were done it was determined that his cancer was not responding to the chemotherapy. He has started a new chemo regimen and will have tests again in 2 months to determine the response.

In one swift, deliberate movement I have her under me. My hands braced on either side of her head; they look big compared to her petite face. Her long hair is spread across the red blanket and I know I’ll keep that damn rug forever. I want to tell her about my tattoo, about my mother, but not now. I study her, her wide bright, blue eyes. They’re most phenomenal in the world; like the colour of the Blue Jays in my mother’s nesting box. I gaze at her for the longest time, our breaths mingling and that in itself has me thinking how much more I want her. Not just as friends, screw friendship. I want her to be mine, to hold her, to kiss her, to keep safe. I don’t even realise I’m getting closer to her until she licks her lips, almost touching mine and I can see she can’t deny what she’s feeling any more than I can. As soon as her eyes flutter closed I close my lips down on her and taste the deliciousness of my blue bird.
 

There are not enough stars in the universe to rate this book.

Every so often, if you are lucky enough, a book comes along that touches you so profoundly you know that a part of it will stay with you always. Never Goodbye is that book for me!

 

 'And so, here I am, surrounded by love, disease free and using it all in a book for you to read. My fight against the monster and my survival with love is all there for you to read mixed in with a great dash of fiction.'

- Kerri Williams

 

Kerri has put all her experience, heartbreak and love into this story and it shows in every way. As per the quote below, Kerri is definitely one of the few people that feel the rain.

 

'Some people feel the rain while others just get wet'

- Bob Marley

 

Never Goodbye is one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever read. Harper Kennedy is fighting what could possibly be a losing battle against The Big C. As is typical of Harper, she is more concerned with how this is affecting everyone around her than herself. Harper is thankful that her family have recently relocated to Albany, Missouri where everyone there is unaware of the battle she has ahead of her.

 

Things don't always go to plan and Harper meets Vaun Campbell. Harper tries desperately not to fall in love with the sweetest guy she has ever met. Vaun has recently lost his mother and the last thing Harper wants to do, is put him through the pain of losing someone he loves all over again.

 

'I'm just so scared my heart isn't strong enough for this; that I'll let you down. I'm scared you will give in to the fight and I'm left saying goodbye to the last person I will love in my entire life.'

- Vaun

 

The promise of a beautiful future with Vaun gives Harper the incentive to fight this horrible disease, with all her heart and soul.

 

'God and heaven can't have you because you're mine, because I loved you first.'

- Vaun

 

I laughed, I cried (well to be honest, sobbed was more like it) and couldn't put this book down. I felt lost when I had finished reading and will be waiting very impatiently for the next instalment of The Albany Boys series.

 

Never Goodbye will have an everlasting impact on me and from the bottom of my heart, I thank Kerri so much for writing this and sharing it with us all.

 

 

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