TRACY HARTSGROVE

She’s fighting for her life — and for her family

By DAPHNE DURET
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Every morning brings with it a new fight for Tracy Hartsgrove.
Every time she gets out of bed it’s always too soon, and there’s always a possibility that during her day — and she rarely ever knows when — another debilitating seizure could come and knock the 30-year-old wife and mother off her feet.
Her list of diagnoses read like punches that would bring down a prizefighter — ovarian, uterine and cervical cancer in 2006, then kidney cancer and a brain tumor, and then starting early this year the painful seizures for which doctors still can’t find an explanation, let alone a cure.
“Trust me, I could lay in my bed all day every day, and it would be easy,” she said. “But I know I can’t do that.”
Instead, Hartsgrove pulls herself up, all 82 pounds of her, and gets 6-year-old Jenna ready for school.
Even on the days she can barely walk, she often helps people in her Stuart neighborhood with their children, so much so that she’s described as the “neighborhood mom.”
Her motivation to fight is displayed on the walls all around her, where the photographed faces of two high school sweethearts and their pretty little girl smile out into the living room of a modestly decorated home where the rent is way past due.
Hartsgrove, a woman who used to run 12 miles a day but has lost nearly 100 pounds in the last year, has had to quit her job in medical billing. Chuck, a former chef, now works construction but often has to take time off when his wife is too sick to stay alone.
They have watched a truck tow away one of their cars after mounting medical bills forced them to have it voluntarily repossessed. They are still thousands behind on rent, hundreds behind on car payments for their remaining car, and owe more than $5,000 in medical bills.
Still, Hartsgrove says, the family fights, and wins, using the only weapon they have left. Love.
Hartsgrove remembers the day, after another devastating doctor’s appointment, when she saw her husband stand in their kitchen, put his head in his hands and cry.
She apologized, telling him she would have never let him marry her if she knew she would have gotten so sick.
“He told me he loved me with all his heart, and that he’d be with me until the end, no matter what,” she said.
For all of that love, Hartsgrove says, she thanks God.
And she’s grateful, too, for the spirit he gave her. “I’m thankful,” she says, “he made me a fighter.”

THE HARTSGROVES’ WISH

The Hartsgroves need about $3,000 to catch up on rent and car payments, and they owe about $5,000 in medical bills. Jenna’s Christmas wish list includes WebKinz-themed gifts and Barbie dolls, and the family could use a home computer.

Nominated by: House of Hope, 2484 SE Bonita Street Stuart, FL 34997 (772) 286-4673.

UPDATE

When she feels like she can no longer go on, Tracy Hartsgrove curls up with the pile of more than 130 letters from Amanda Gilson’s language arts students at Oslo Middle School in Vero Beach.

“If I had a lot of money, I would donate it all to you,” one student, Megan, wrote. “You’re so brave, hopeful and caring. You inspire us all.”

Aside from the letters, Hartsgrove - diagnosed with several forms of cancer and a brain tumor while suffering frequent, unexplainable seizures - has received more than $18,000 in donations from the public. The money will help her and her husband, Chuck, pay a few medical bills, catch up on their rent, pay off Chuck’s car, take a family trip and get the couple’s wedding rings out of the pawnshop.

Someone donated the family a computer, and several people donated Barbie dolls and WebKinz stuffed animals, the top item on 6-year-old Jenna’s Christmas list.

The past weeks have brought with them more medical troubles - cancerous cells in a tumor in her neck and worsening seizures that have almost forced her to be hospitalized - but the kindness of all those who donated money, gifts and letters have moved Hartsgrove to tears.

“I don’t know how I would have made it without each and every one of you,” she said.