William “Will” Brad Asbell II was born on October 11, 2006. When he was about 7 months old, I noticed that he had a “twitch” in his left eye. On Mother’s Day weekend 2007, Will flipped out of his car seat so we took him to an Emergency Care facility near our home. Will was okay, but we wanted to get a CT scan for our peace of mind. After a couple of hours in the ER, we were told that Will was fine from his fall, but that he did have a mass on his brain and an emergency MRI that confirmed that he had a brain tumor – we were devastated. On June 14, 2007 Will had brain surgery. Unfortunately, doctors could not remove the entire tumor because of its location but we still kept the hope that the tumor would “die”. Instead Will’s tumor began to grow again and we were sent to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to begin treatment. We arrived in Memphis on February 5th and moved into Ronald McDonald House on February 10th, 2008.

The day we moved in, I cried and cried because I felt like my family was separated, but it didn’t take long for us to warm up to the staff at Ronald McDonald House, to meet other families and begin to share our stories, experiences, and struggles. We met so many wonderful families and they were such a blessing to us. Ronald McDonald House turned into our “home-away-from-home” and the staff was and still is our “family”. We had a nice comfortable place to sleep, shower and have some time alone if we needed it. We had a place to do our laundry and a kitchen to cook whatever we wanted to eat. The other families became our friends and their support, comfort and understanding carried us through the toughest moments. Will is such a personable little guy and people couldn’t help but gravitate to him so we met a lot of people because of him. And the simple joy of seeing Will happy in our “home-away-from-home” is irreplaceable. During our stay at Ronald McDonald House we had the pleasure to meet many groups that came in and volunteered their time to entertain the kids and the families. They helped get our minds off of what we are going through and having that ‘break’ from our troubles to laugh, eat, sing, play bingo or just socialize is a gift that we will always be grateful for.

Ronald McDonald House is near and dear to our hearts for so many reasons. It gave us the care and companionship we left behind, and became not just the house we lived in, but the HOME to return to after a long day at the hospital. Ronald McDonald House® of Memphis has been a God send to us. Thank you for everything! We could not have made it without you.
 

- Resa (Will’s Mom)