6-year-old braves brain surgery

Carman Williams

cwilliams@weatherforddemocrat.com

Six-year-old daughters mean kindergarten, T-ball games, and lots of pink. For Cris and Kristi Hall, it also means hospital visits, surgeries and the remarkable bravery they see in their youngest child.

Jessie Hall is her family’s baby, the only girl of four children.

“She’s a pretty tough little cookie,” Kristi Hall said. “She has to be, just to keep up with the boys.”

Besides being a tough girl, Hall describes Jessie as outgoing and chatty, the kind of child who will literally capture any audience into a conversation.

In short, Jessie is a normal little girl with one exception — she lives with Rasmussen’s Encephalitis, a rare disease with symptoms similar to those of epilepsy.

In order to counteract the effects of this disease, Jessie will undergo a hemispherectomy to remove the right half of her brain.

Jessie’s journey began last August. Cris and Kristi Hall had taken their children — Jessie, their oldest son, Matt, then 9, and 8-year-old twins, Jake and Josh — for a day on the lake. After sailing for about an hour, the family stopped on the water for lunch. The Halls noticed Jessie was holding her sandwich, staring off into space. Then the seizures came. That was the Hall family’s introduction to Rasmussen’s.

Over the past few months, the Halls spent hours in and out of hospitals. Jessie’s seizures became a regular occurrence, especially in the left side of her face, arm and hand. Her arm and hand are now mostly immobile, but that doesn’t slow Jessie down. She’s still active, even learning to catch, throw and bat one-handed on her T-ball team.

“We keep everything as normal as possible,” Kristi Hall said. “We don’t baby her. We take good care of her, but still encourage her to do everything she used to do.”

Hall also said while she won’t make things easier on Jessie by doing things for her, she is willing to coach her daughter when the kindergartner has trouble.

“She’ll say, ‘Is this when I have to be tough?’ and I say ‘Yes, baby,’” Hall said.

The Halls try to help their four children adjusted to Jessie’s condition by talking openly about the disease as often as possible. They encourage their children to ask questions, and say they are amazed by some of the questions the kids come up with. Hall also said Jessie handles her approaching surgery matter-of-factly, and looks forward to surgery so that she won’t have any more seizures.

Jessie and her family still have a long road ahead of them this summer. Jessie’s surgery is scheduled for June 11 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

After recovering for a little over a week, Jessie will be moved to Kennedy Krieger Institute for a few weeks to undergo intensive physical therapy. Kristi will stay with her daughter the entire time while Cris and their sons plan on joining them over the July 4 weekend.

One thing is certain, the Halls have had no lack of community support. May 9 was declared “Jessie Hall Day,” where Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders led Jessie’s classmates at Stuard Elementary in celebrating their little pink hero. Cracker Barrel in Weatherford held a carnival raising $5,000 for Jessie’s benefit, and Weatherford National Bank has set up a trust fund in Jessie’s name.

To show their gratitude, the Halls announced the Jessie Hall Hemispherectomy Scholarship on Monday, and plan to award $1,000 to kids who have gone through hemispherectomies successfully.

“We have been given so much from our community, and really all over the world. This is our way of giving back,” Hall said.

But most of the Hall’s family and friends, as well as those who have been tracking Jessie’s progress through the family’s blog, jessiekelley.blogspot.com, don’t expect to be given something back. They just want to see a healthy little girl graduate kindergarten, move up to little league, and continue being the pink princess they have all fallen in love with.