GAIL WHITE Woman's condition doesn't make her bitter

When Jonell Seevers was a young girl, she had hopes of becoming a schoolteacher when she grew up. Instead, at 26, she is preparing for a life, she believes, that is waiting for her after this one.
Jonell, from Minerva, was born with a large hemangioma on the left side of her body.
There is no cure for Jonell's condition. Her prognosis is terminal.
Rightfully, Jonell could be an angry, bitter young woman, mad at God and the world for the circumstances of her life. But she is anything but angry or bitter.
"I have been through all those emotions," Jonell says of the anger and bitterness. Looking at her mother she smiles, "And some days are better than others."
Instead, Jonell has one of the kindest, heartwarming, humble dispositions I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.
The condition
"A hemangioma is like a tumor," Jackie, Jonell's mother, explains. "It's not a cancer tumor. It's a tumor gone out of control."
One look at Jonell's leg gives new meaning to "out of control."
"Your blood vessels run in lines through you body," Jackie says. "Jonell's go all over the place, tunneling through everything."
Shyly, Jonell pulls up her pants leg. Her left calf is more than double the size of her right.
Dark, purple splotches run up and down her leg. Each rounded, purple area reveals squiggly blood vessels just barely below the surface of the skin.
"It's like a toothache times 10," Jonell describes the pain of her illness. "It is taking over and strangling everything. I can feel it crushing my bones sometimes."
Adding to the pain of the growing hemangioma, Jonell has another severe complication to her disease.
"Sometimes, they bleed," she says of the lesions. "When they start bleeding, they don't stop. It's like a faucet." With every heartbeat, blood gushes from the distorted veins.
Two times a week, Jonell travels to Tod Children's Hospital for blood tests and a transfusion.
"That's on a good week," she says,
Other weeks, Tod's becomes her "home."
During Jonell's childhood, the hemangioma had little effect on her life.
"She danced, rode dirt bikes, swam," Jackie describes her daughter's happy childhood.
Started to grow
When Jonell was 14, she had her appendix removed. It was then that the tumorlike disease inside her started to grow. She began experiencing stress bleeds from the lesions.
Seventh grade was the last year she was able to attend school. In-home tutors became her teachers.
At a time when young people are becoming socially busy and self-absorbed, it would have been easy to forget about a young girl too sick to come to school.
Jonell's friends never forgot her.
On crutches, she attended her senior prom. To Jonell's surprise, she was crowned Prom Queen.
Her classmates knew they had been touched by true beauty.
Last month, Jonell graduated from college. Unable to attend classes on campus, Jonell took correspondence courses from Penn State University.
A special graduation ceremony was held for her at Tod Children's Hospital, complete with the Ursuline band, a congressman, her doctors, nurses and friends.
Along with her Penn State diploma, Jonell received a Congressional Award for Excellence, Tod Children's Hospital Award and NEOUCOM Education Award.
"Your perspective on Life, its Quality and Challenges has surpassed any textbook, clinical knowledge," one award reads.
Another declares, "You have touched our hearts with your smile and our lives with your courage."
Jonell may never stand in front of a classroom of children and teach reading, writing and arithmetic, but every day of her life she is teaching everyone around her the meaning of grace, wisdom and peace beyond understanding.
gwhite@vindy.com