Sarah Ann Mace
March 20, 1992 - Walla Walla, Washington
December 25, 2008 - Bend, Oregon
Faith - Love - Support
I can do all things through Christ;
who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13
dau. Alan & Carie Mace
Section 5
Sarah was born March 20, 1992 at Walla Walla, Washington and had resided in Bend since 1999. She was a junior at Mountain View High School.
Sarah is survived by her parents, Alan and Carie Mace, her brother, Hayden, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and numerous cousins.
Funeral services for Sarah will be 10:00AM January 2, 2009 at Nativity Lutheran Church, located at the intersection of Brosterhous and Knott Road, with reception following at Mountain View High School cafeteria at noon.
Donations in honor of Sarah may be made to either the Bend Sparrow Club or the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Donor ser- vices, P.O. Box 4072 , Pittsfield, MA 01202 , www.leukemia-lymphoma.org, or Sparrow Clubs USA, 906 NE Greenwood Ave., Suite 2, Bend OR 97701, www.sparrowbclubs.org.
Source: Bend Bulletin, 12/31/2008
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Inspiring Bend teen loses fight against leukemia
Sarah Mace 1992 — 2008
By Mark Morical / The Bulletin
Published: December 28. 2008 4:00AM PSTSarah Mace, a Mountain View High School student whose recent battle with leukemia served as inspiration to her classmates and fellow athletes, died on Christmas Day. She was 16.
She died of complications from acute myeloid leukemia, a rare, aggressive form of leukemia that is especially uncommon among children.
After battling the disease for a year and a half, Sarah spent eight days in the intensive care unit at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland before passing away early Christmas morning. Her parents, Alan and Carie Mace, were by her side.
In her fight against the disease, Sarah was a source of motivation to sports teams at Mountain View. She was featured in The Bulletin in November 2007, when she helped inspire her brother’s Mountain View football team to a league championship and a run to the Class 5A state semifinals.
This fall, as a tribute to Sarah, no one on the Cougar girls soccer team wore the No. 18 jersey, which Sarah had worn two years earlier as a freshman on the varsity squad.
Though quite shy, Sarah spoke to many of the Mountain View sports teams to provide inspiration.
This fall, Sarah was back at school as a junior, taking two classes online and one class during the afternoon at Mountain View.
Sarah’s battle with leukemia also awed her parents.
“Alan and I are both very proud of her,” Carie Mace said Saturday. “Not once has she ever complained or said, ‘Why me?’ After she passed, we looked at her body. She had a warrior’s body, and she battled.
“She’s my hero.”
A memorial service for Sarah is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at Nativity Lutheran Church, 60850 Brosterhous Road in Bend. A reception at Mountain View High School will follow.
Mark Morical can be reached at 541-383-0318 or at mmorical@bendbulletin.com.
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This teen’s proving to be one courageous Cougar
By Mark Morical / The Bulletin
Published: November 27. 2008 4:00AM PSTEditor’s note: Last Thanksgiving, The Bulletin profiled Sarah Mace and her family as Sarah, then 15, battled leukemia. The Bend family’s struggle served as inspiration for the Mountain View High School football team, for which Sarah’s brother played. Today, one year later, we update that story.
The season came to a bitter end on Friday, in a disappointing 26-18 state quarterfinal playoff loss to Jefferson of Portland.
But Sarah Mace was there to cheer on the Mountain View football team at Jack Harris Stadium in Bend. Just as she was there in Hillsboro when the Cougar girls soccer team played for the Class 5A state championship and lost to rival Bend High 1-0 in overtime.
The Mountain View junior has been an inspiration of sorts for sports teams — for everyone, really — at her high school.
Sarah, 16, has battled leukemia since being diagnosed with the disease in June 2007.
She underwent a successful bone marrow transplant in October of last year, and the leukemia briefly went into remission. But by Christmas, it was back.
After a year of continued fighting, including a month in a Doernbecher Children’s Hospital bed in Portland and a couple more months in a wheelchair, Sarah is walking on her own and plans to celebrate Thanksgiving today at home in Bend with her family. Sarah’s brother Hayden, a center on the Linfield College football team who starred for Mountain View last year, plans to be there.
A long fight
Last Thanksgiving, the Mace family — including Sarah and Hayden and their parents, Alan and Carie — was forced to spend the holiday in a Portland-area hotel room near the hospital. Following the transplant, Sarah and Carie were in Portland for more than two months.
The mother and daughter have continued traveling back and forth between Bend and Portland all this year for Sarah’s treatments at Doernbecher.
“She said, with tears, she has a lot to be thankful for — for just being home,” Carie said, speaking for Sarah from the Mace home during a phone interview last week. “She hates the drive to Portland. Any time away from her family tears her apart. She does have a lot to be thankful for, for all of us to be together.”
Sarah has acute myeloid leukemia, a rare, aggressive form of leukemia that is especially uncommon among children, according to the American Cancer Society.
In February, she underwent a donor lymphocyte infusion, to give her body more cells from her bone marrow donor, Carie said. Those cells attacked her organs and led to graft versus host disease.
But after a month in the hospital and two more months in a wheelchair, Sarah recovered through physical therapy and a strong will.
“(Doctors) didn’t have a lot of hope of her making it through that,” Carie said. “It has been a miracle.”
‘One day at a time’
After a mass of leukemia cells was removed from Sarah’s stomach about a month ago, she underwent two weeks of radiation on her stomach area. Since then, according to Carie, no leukemia has been found in Sarah’s blood.
Sarah is back at school, taking two classes online and one class during the afternoon at Mountain View.
This past season, as a tribute to Sarah, no one on the Cougar girls soccer team wore the No. 18 jersey, which Sarah wore two years ago as a freshman on the varsity squad. She was also asked to serve as a manager for the team.
Though quite shy, Sarah has spoken to many of the school’s sports teams to provide inspiration.
“A lot of people have seen her courage and strength, and I think they admire her,” Carie Mace said of her daughter. “A lot of kids her age don’t realize what she’s been through.
“She takes it one day at a time and battles every day.”
Mark Morical can be reached at 541-383-0318 or at mmorical@bendbulletin.com.
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Playing for Sarah
Sarah Mace, who is battling leukemia, is an inspiration to brother Hayden and the Mountain View football team as the Cougars seek a state title
By Mark Morical / The Bulletin
Published: November 22. 2007 4:00AM PSTThey have much to be thankful for.
The son is about to play in the biggest football game of his high school career on Friday night. The daughter is making progress in a courageous fight for her life.
Despite being forced to live apart, brother and sister have grown close in the last few months.
Sarah Mace, a 15-year-old sophomore at Mountain View High School in Bend, has battled leukemia since being diagnosed with the disease in June. She has been an inspiration all season to the Mountain View football team, which is preparing to host Jefferson in a quarterfinal game of the Class 5A state playoffs on Friday.
Hayden Mace, a senior at Mountain View and Sarah’s brother, is a team captain and first-team all-Intermountain Conference center and defensive tackle for the Cougars.
A burly 6 feet 3 inches and 260 pounds, Hayden seemed somehow small when talking about his sister’s illness this week in the Mountain View locker room.
But he lit up with energy when describing Sarah’s reaction to his frequent visits in Portland.
“She always has a smile on, and big blue eyes when I walk in,” Hayden said.
Sarah is with her mother, Carie Mace, in Portland, where the two have stayed in a hotel since Sarah received a bone marrow transplant Oct. 16. But for a few brief visits home, Sarah has spent most of her time in Portland since her June diagnosis. She must remain in Portland for more than three months after the transplant for frequent blood work at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
Hayden visits Sarah nearly every weekend. Alan Mace, Sarah and Hayden’s father, splits his time between Bend and Portland.
Circle of inspiration
But all four will be together today for Thanksgiving in Portland, and Sarah is hoping to be granted a 24-hour leave to return to Bend for Friday night’s game at Mountain View. She made it to the Cougars’ 23-0 home playoff win over Sherwood last Friday, sitting in the press box with the Mountain View coaches.
“The guys get motivated when they see her,” Hayden said. “For me, I can dig down deep for that extra strength and finish a play.
“Her not being around kind of hurts her, but at the same time we’re playing for her — and we’re doing some things this team has never done before. A lot of what she is doing inspires us.”
And it works both ways.
“They do (inspire me),” Sarah said of the Mountain View team via phone from Portland this week, sounding a little tired but upbeat. “Their work ethic and all the hours they put in to be a great team … they play so well together. I think they’re determined and I think they’re doing awesome.”
After suffering from flu-like symptoms and lack of sleep, Sarah early last summer was diagnosed with AML — acute myeloid leukemia.
A rare form of leukemia that is especially uncommon among children, AML, according to the American Cancer Society, is a cancer of the myeloid line of white blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells.
Sarah immediately underwent two rounds of chemotherapy at Doernbecher, robbing her of her long brown hair and making her nauseous. The treatments were not effective, according to Carie Mace, so for the third round, doctors added an experimental drug that helped significantly reduce the amount of leukemia in her body, increasing the chances of a successful transplant.
Alan Mace said doctors gave Sarah a 50 percent to 60 percent chance of survival when she was first diagnosed. But now, he said, Sarah’s life likely hinges on the success of the transplant.
“This is the final option,” Alan said. “Either it does or it doesn’t work.”
Carie said doctors were amazed at Sarah’s recovery. After the transplant, the teen was walking the halls of the hospital and riding a stationary bike that same night.
Doctors told Carie that most bone-marrow transplant patients stay in bed for two weeks after the procedure.
“They said they couldn’t believe her determination and strength and how much she wants to fight this,” Carie recalled. “She kept asking me, ‘Am I fighting hard enough?’ And I said, ‘You are. You’re doing everything you should be doing.’”
Sarah’s will to survive is always on the minds of the Mountain View football players.
“In the huddle, guys will say, ‘If she can fight, you can fight,’” Hayden said.
‘A huge part of this team’
He writes those words with a marker on the inside of his taped right wrist before every game. On the inside of his taped left wrist he writes: “No fear, no pain, all glory.” On the tops of each wrist are his sister’s initials — S.M. — and the words “Be Strong.”
Hayden also wears the same white Under Armour shirt beneath his pads for every game. The shirt is covered with handwritten messages from Sarah: Bible verses, inspirational quotes, and other messages of significance to brother and sister.
And the initials S.M. can be found on the backs of most of the Cougars’ helmets this season.
“She’s been a huge part of this team,” said Mountain View football coach John Nehl. “Mainly because she’s fighting so hard against something she has no control over. If she can go through the hell she’s going through, we can certainly step it up on the football field, but at the same time realize there’s something much bigger going on out there.”
The Cougars are two wins away from the Class 5A state championship game. With a victory over Jefferson on Friday night, they advance to the semifinals for just the third time in school history.
Hayden, who was an all-state center last year on the Mountain View team that lost in the quarterfinals, said that last season’s Cougars underestimated themselves.
“Our goal was just to make the playoffs,” Hayden recalled. “This year, one of our goals from the first day of summer workouts was to win a state championship.
“I think this team has a lot of abilities and skills, but with Sarah’s extra love and support and influence, she has a very good deal to do with our accomplishments, and what we still have to accomplish. Without her, we might not be as determined in some games.”
Her presence Friday night would no doubt give the Cougars some added incentive, just as it did last week and earlier in the season. In late September and early October before her transplant, Sarah came home for 10 days and attended three Mountain View football games.
If she does return home Friday, it will be an emotional boost for Sarah as well.
“Whenever I go home I feel like I’m back to normal,” said Sarah, who often wears a wig made from her own hair. “It helps a lot to go back home and see everyone.”
Sarah, who played on the Mountain View varsity girls soccer team last year as a freshman, is particularly close to senior running back and linebacker Mike Warsaw and senior wide receiver and defensive back Josh Young, who are close friends of Hayden and grew up with both Hayden and Sarah.
Warsaw said he has visited Sarah twice in Portland.
“She’s been fighting so hard for something bigger than most people have to go through in their daily lives — she inspires us to keep pushing,” Warsaw explained. “She sees how far we’ve come, and she knows we fight for her, so she fights for us.”
Senior running back Ash Gibson, the Intermountain Conference most valuable player this season, has also developed a bond with Sarah.
“It gives us drive because you always look at it and say, ‘Things could be worse,’” Gibson said. “I could be dealt that same situation. It goes to show you can push yourself through anything. Every time we go out on the field, we think of her.”
Rallying in support
Much of the community has rallied around Sarah, who is a “sparrow” for Mountain View High School through Sparrow Clubs USA, a national nonprofit organization of school-based clubs that assist children and families in medical crisis.
“The community has been great with what we’re going through,” said Carie Mace. “It feels like a small town, how they came together to help Sarah — the students, the high school, and the friends and family.”
Through it all, Sarah’s strength has never wavered.
“The perspective of life just changes a lot,” said Sarah, sounding wise beyond her 15 years. “I don’t take it for granted. My faith in God has grown so much.”
Said Carie: “Sometimes she’ll pull me through a day — she’s amazing.”
The relationship between Hayden and Sarah has changed dramatically since Sarah became ill, Carie said. Before the leukemia struck, they were a typical brother and sister in high school, constantly nagging each other.
“Now they can’t leave a conversation without saying they love each other,” Carie said. “It’s brought us all closer together.”
Said Hayden: “It’s heartbreaking, but it’s definitely improved our relationship. She’s my best friend and my sister.”
Hayden admitted that at times he has found it difficult to focus on football while his sister is suffering. But he has also gained a new appreciation for life and football.
“It’s tough to give all your effort and focus on football when loved ones are struggling,” he said. “But it seems the littlest things I can focus more on and appreciate. You never know when your last game is going to be … your last day.”
Mark Morical can be reached at 383-0318 or at mmorical@bendbulletin.com.
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i miss you sarah girl
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