About Rosie
Rosie was a normal Disney loving little girl, living her best life in Orlando before she was diagnosed with stage 4 Neuroblastoma when she was 3 years old. Her cancer was very aggressive. She was able to battle it for a little over 3.5 years before she went to heaven. Rosie was such an amazingly sweet, caring, and loving little girl. Even on her death bed she wanted to make sure everyone around her was happy and would do her best to make sure everyone was happy. She truly cared about everyone she met. She would do toy drives, fun bandaid drives, and pop it drives in honor of her birthday each year and donate all the items she collected to the oncology floors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Arnold Palmer’s Children’s Hospital. She wanted the kids at the hospitals to be given toys and other fun items when they had to go there for treatments to make their time at the hospitals more fun.
We traveled to Philadelphia for Rosie’s frontline cancer treatments and towards the end of her relapse. Our family did not know anyone in Philadelphia when we started her cancer journey but we soon had a large family in Philadelphia. Rosie’s dad is a Sergeant with the Florida Highway Patrol. All it took was a phone call from one of his supervisors to the Pennsylvania State Police and we were looked after the entire time we were up there. The Pennsylvania State Police, New Jersey State Police, and the FBI would take Rosie and our family on fun adventures, send us food while we were in the hospital, and helped make our time up there as special as they could. Rosie was declared NED (no evidence of disease) in November 2019 and stopped chemotherapy in January of 2020.
Rosie started traveling to New York City in February of 2020 for a vaccine trial to try to prevent relapse at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. We had never been to New York City and didn’t know anyone there either. Another call was placed but this time by a Lieutenant from the Pennsylvania State Police to the New York State Police. We gained another big family in New York City. We started traveling to New York City three weeks before covid shut down the city. It was scary at first but the New York State Police looked after us and took Rosie on so many fun adventures. Rosie made New York City her playground. She shopped all over the city! She went on so many VIP adventures. She loved New York!
Rosie relapsed in July of 2020. She immediately started relapse treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Traveling to New York City and being in a hospital during covid was a very different experience than her time in a hospital for frontline treatments because of all the covid rules and shut downs in the city. The New York State Police, New Jersey State Police, New York Police Department, New York State Environmental Conservation Department, and the Fire Department of the City of New York all created amazing adventures for Rosie while we were up there for her treatments. I have so many memories I will forever cherish because people took time out of their lives to create fun adventures for Rosie and genuinely cared about Rosie. They created friendships with her and wanted to make her life as fun as possible. Rosie’s Adventures is based on Rosie’s experiences while battling cancer, her love for going on adventures with first responders, her love of toys, and just having fun. We want to help as many kids battling cancer experience the same joy that so many people helped create for Rosie.