Charlotte Rose McAuliffe was a happy and spunky 3 year-old who loved spending time with her family and especially being a big sister to her new sibling Emily.  She started complaining of back pain, and as it progressively worsened, she was referred to an Orthopedist who ordered an MRI.  

Charlotte went in for her MRI on February 9, 2006 and didn’t even awake from anesthesia before being whisked to Neurosurgery. It was discovered that she had a brain tumor as well as drop metastases on her spine.  Her wonderful Neurosurgeon Dr. Storm was able to fully resect the brain tumor, but couldn’t remove the spinal tumors, as they went too deep into her spinal column and removing them would have caused too much damage.  She was officially diagnosed a few days later with Medulloblastoma.  

She started treatment right away, and remained primarily inpatient for the following 9 months while receiving high dose chemotherapy, in a bid to not only save her life but hold off on radiation since she was so young.  

This time was so hard for her.  She went into her MRI a seemingly healthy and happy 3-year-old and awoke from surgery connected to multiple I.V.’s, monitors and extremely sore from the brain surgery.  She was very agitated and it took months before she would let doctors examine her without a struggle and the nurses and I perform procedures without a huge battle.  

After completing the high dose chemotherapy it was found that she still had cancerous cells in her spinal fluid and there were still remaining lesions on her spine. It was then that she went on an experimental chemotherapy regime for two months and then oral chemotherapy until we received devastating news. On July 12, 2007 we were told that she had suffered a full relapse both at the primary tumor site as well as a second tumor under her cerebellum.  

Dr. Storm again did a full resection, this time removing both brain tumors, and then she did a month of oral chemotherapy before heading to Houston for Proton Radiation.  She completed 32 radiation treatments while in Houston.  She was her normal happy self throughout the entire treatment and barring fatigue and some breathing issues, still managed to have fun swimming with her sister and visiting things around the Houston area.  She needed to be sedated every day for her treatment and she would even help the anesthesiologists give her medication.  After radiation she took Accutane for 6 months and has been off treatment since then!  

She has had a few scares since then, and it has been determined that she sustained kidney and liver damage as a result of treatment as well as benign Meningiomas in her spine.  She has many other late effects as a result of the treatments she received such as short stature and hearing loss, but she doesn’t let it slow her down!  

She is now 11 and in the fifth grade.  Charlotte loves taking dance class, doing competitive cheer with her sister, and her favorite subjects in school are Art and Gym.  She also loves holding her own lemonade stands and getting ice cream at Rita’s Water Ice.

You can continue to follow her journey at www.caringbridge.org/visit/charlottemcauliffe

Written by Sherry-Lee McAuliffe, Charlotte’s Mom
Updated: February 2014