By Félix Alfonso Peña
Reading Eagle

Her voice was forever stilled by a tumor that ended her life before she reached her 21st birthday, but the spirit of Lauren Fitzgerald remains an energizing presence in the lives of her family, her friends and her boyfriend. And because Fitzgerald elected to become an organ donor two months before she succumbed to that cancerous brain tumor, she is a presence in those people whose lives have been restored.  Lauren's father, Michael Fitzgerald, 47, of Wyomissing remembers her favorite quote: “I may not be able to change what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”

“She made it clear to everybody,” Corey Castner said. “ ‘Never be scared to talk to me about it.' We were all scared, but she didn't seem scared about what was happening.”  Castner, 20, along with Brandi Hill, 21, and Mary Beth Woodward, 20, graduated with Lauren in 2003 from Wyomissing High School. The soul friends remained bonded after they went to separate universities: Lauren to Drexel, Woodward to Bloomsburg and Castner and Hill to Kutztown. “She never let go of her happy spirit,” Hill said. “We still made our shopping trips. Ten days after her first surgery, she went down to Rehoboth Beach.”  Family including Lauren's two sisters, Hannah Fitzgerald, 11, and Elizabeth Cairo, 27, of Redondo Beach, Calif., friends and schoolmates rallied around Lauren during her illness.  “There was an incredible outpouring of support,” Michael said. “Car washes, bake sales - they raised over $3,000.”

In addition, Cairo and Lauren's boyfriend, Anthony Cusati, are organizing a five-kilometer run to be held Sunday in Lauren's memory to benefit brain tumor research. Michael said Cusati's support was unflagging. “Anthony stayed by her side,” he said. “There were times when it changed the way she looked; he didn't let that get in the way.” A group of Lauren's friends had silver rings made, inscribed with “anam cara,” Irish Gaelic for soul friends, and chipped in to purchase one for Lauren two weeks before her death at Duke University Hospital in North Carolina. “We had planned on doing the ring long before,” Woodward said. The illness brought a sense of urgency, however. “She wore the ring every day after that,” said Lauren's mother, Mary Ann Blefko, 54, of Reading.

She and Michael, who are divorced, showed the certificate and medallion they received from the organ donor organization, Carolina Donor Services, and they underscored an important message: Even terminally ill people may be able to donate organs or tissue.  “She made the decision years ago (to be a donor),” Blefko said. “It was on her driver's license. When we did the living will, she put it on there.”  Lauren died at Duke University Hospital, where her parents had elected to take her because the facility had a brain tumor center, on July 18, 14 months after she initially had been diagnosed during her freshman year at Drexel.

Her family had taken her there for surgery, but the tumor was too advanced and Lauren too weak. She died of brain edema (swelling) after a biopsy of the tumor. Michael said: “The tumor was of the glioma family of tumors. It was invasive and diffuse.”  But because the tumor was a primary one, he said - not a secondary one that had been caused by a tumor elsewhere in the body - and because it was at stage three, not a more advanced stage four, the doctors agreed that Lauren's organs were viable for recovery and transplant with little or no risk that recipients would contract a malignancy as a result. Lauren's friend Hill, who accompanied the family to the hospital, recalled, “Those were the longest two days of my life. We were down there expecting to come back on Sunday with Lauren,” Hill said. “Then we realized Lauren wasn't going to come back. There was comfort in knowing that everything was how she would have wanted it to be.”

As a result of Lauren's decision to become a donor, Michael said, “Five people are alive today, ranging from a 27-year-old New York woman who received Lauren's heart to an 81-year-old woman from Philadelphia who received a kidney.” Blefko pointed out that the final hours at the hospital were very challenging.  “But I was glad that we could stick it out,” she said. “On a breathing tube, Lauren looked like she was just sleeping. … I'm glad we could stay on track. It's what she wanted to do.”

Contact Félix Alfonso Peña at 610-371-5078 or apena@readingeagle.com