An extraordinary woman, Laura Jo Parella Weeks was a devoted mother, caring daughter, most awesome sister, favorite auntie to many, granny to one, loving daycare provider to hundreds, and friend to so many more … passed away Tuesday, January 5, 2010, surrounded by family, after a brave bout with cancer.

Originating from El Cerrito, Laura Jo Parella was born to parents Joanne and Frank Parella. Her young life was spent playing in the canyons of El Cerrito with her brothers and sisters; Lynne, Mick, Lisa, Mitch and Matt. The family moved to Pinole in 1964 where her youngest brother Marc, was born. Graduating from Pinole Valley High in 1971, Laura married in 1972 and started her new life with daughter Roni Sue. In 1974 Laura pursued her passion of taking care of children and opened a home daycare that lasted for 35 years. After nine years of loving so many children, she gave birth to her first son Kyle Frank in 1983. Dana Leslie was born in 1986 and Chad Michael was welcomed in 1988. In 1990 Laura became granny to her only granddaughter, Brytnii Lynne. Along with her own children Laura was an amazing aunt to Dustin and Derek Crenshaw; Vincent, Zachary and Madison Parella; Francesca and Dominic Parella and Gregory and Alexander Parella.

Laura was the ultimate soccer mom. She spent years on the board of directors for the West Contra Costa Youth Soccer League and received the City of Pinole volunteer of the year for her services to the league. Laura was a diehard 49er fan, loved her cabin in Lake Tahoe and her waterfront trailer in Lake Berryesa. She enjoyed all that life blessed upon her and was a blessing to those around her.

Friends and family are invited to a celebration of Laura’s life on Saturday, January 16, at 1:00 p.m. at Hilltop Community Church, ]\
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Contributions in her memory may be made to St. Judes Children’s Hospital.

Our family would like to put together a book of memories and tributes of Laura. If you'd like to be included please leave what you'd like to say. Please include your name and e-mail address. No rush, this is not something we are trying to have done for the services.

My mom is now in God's presence. How lucky He is.

Today still brings no changes. I really don't know what else to say.

Another night is ending as my brother aunt and I buckle down to stay the night with my mom. There are no new updates just things that need to be said. Although it may seem we did not get a miracle in a cure, I believe we've all expiernced one in my mother.
Today she was moved to a private room upstairs which allowed more people so we stayed up here mostly. But the phenomenon happening in the halls below was truly breathtaking. As we came of the elevator the halls were lined left right and in front of us. It was as though there was a tunnel of undying love. Something you see in a movie. It warms my heart to know how loved she is and what a true impact she has made. So many people showed up who were once little children who adored their daycare lady. ..now with broken hearts. The show of support has comforted my family and I. My grandmother, brothers, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins thank you all for every last drop of thoughtfulness and kindness. But there is truly no one on Earth that would love this more than Laura Jo.

I write this morning from the icu waiting room. we've been here all night. for those who depend on this blog for information, here is an update. we were called in yesterday morning to meet with the doctor. he explained that things weren't going as well as we had hoped and my mother was indeed losing her battle. we made the decision to not start any type of life support. we are all here with her by the dozens. they are keeping her comfortable and sheared. now we must wait. I'm sorry for those of you who had to find out over this blog. God bless.

the love felt today is undeniable. the hospital has never seen waiting rooms so full. what a perfect village.

pray like you've never prayed before

Since I've been here today, she's been asleep. They have added a few precautions to the plan. She has had devices on her legs to massage them in order to keep the blood flowing, because she is high risk for blood clots. Today they added an air mattress on top of the mattress.

She continues to be very tired and the drugs keep her kind of out of it. We won't know too much about now well the treatments are working until about a week.

My brothers and I just read all the comments all of you have written on the blog. She was so happy to hear them and thanks everyone for all the support.

As the new year approaches our days get longer and the fight continues. I write you this morning from my moms bedside. She knows I write and often asks what I write and who we hear from. I've never seen a braver person than the woman lying in front of me. She has her oxygen tube blocking some of her face, her new feeding tube on her nose, and yet looks more beautiful than ever. Guests comment on her glow and how fabulous her hair looks. As exhausted as she is she fights like a soldeir. Fights the discomfort and labored breathing.

We, being the family we are, have taken over the waiting room and broken the 2 person admittance rule a million times. The woman is loved. Her brothers, sisters, brother in laws, sister in laws, nieces, nephews and dear dear friends are here non stop without fail and with no thought.

Right now she is resting. She had radiation this morning. She is now getting her food through a tube because it's hard to swallow.

The fight continues. We route for her like the niners in the superbowl. Go team Laura.

Hello all,

Sorry we didn't post yesterday. It was one of the busiest day so far. After the port surgery on Monday, Laura was very heavily drugged all through Tuesday. The began Chemotherapy on Tuesday at 12 noon. Radiation was scheduled for 3:30 but the doctors began asking us if we wanted to go through with it. Since her breathing has become so labored, Laura has began having horrible anxiety which comprimises her breathinga heart rate. The doctors thought that this treatment may set one off and being as heavily drugged as she was and how fagile her breathing was they thought it may be risky.

But still the decision was made to start radiation. The tumor i growing rapidly and we didn't want to wait another day. So from here out Chemo and radiation on Mondays. Radiation by itself Tuesday - Saturday.

As it is right now, she is very much not herself and visitors to the ICU are limited to family.

We'd really once again like to thank everyone for support, love, prayers, house cleaning, groceries, meals and everything else that has lightened the load just a little bit

Today my mom had a port a cath(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_(medical)) inserted. The surgery went well. They are keeping her in ICU in order to keep her under observation and to give her her own room. Still looks like treatment starts tomorrow.

Hello everyone

here is where i will from now on be posting information. This way, I can give out the address rather than having to remember to add e-mail addresses to the list.

Today was another long and informative day at Doctor's Hospital. It has been determined that to insert a stent would be too dangerous because of the size of the tumor. So the plan of action is to stick to the original schedule. Tomorrow she will surgery to put in her port for chemo and iv. Tuesday will be her first day of treatment.

Her spirits were god today, her cough was non existent and her breathing was easier. They plan to keep her in the hospital to keep under observation.

Dear Family and Friends

I'm sure most of you know but my mother has been admitted to Doctor's hospital. We brought her in yesterday, January 26th, around 2 o'clock after a really rough night. After x- rays and ct scans it was discovered that her right lung has collapsed. We spent all of yesterday in the waiting room (having taken over a complete area for ourselves-dam Parella Family) waiting on wheteher or not they plan to do surgery. They want to insert a stint in her airway to manually open it and help her breathing.

Our main concern when taking her in is how labored her breathing had become because we needed her to be strong enough for treatment. She is scheduled for a port to be put in on Monday and treatment is FINALLY scheduled for Tuesday. She will have chemo one day a week and radiation 5 days a week for 6 weeks and reevaluate after 8 weeks.


As of right now she is still in the hospital and i will TRY to keep everyone informed. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE understand that texting is NOT easy for us. Given, it IS easier than phone calls but it is still a lot. Today alone I (Dana) woke up to texts from 11 different people. And yesterday my phone never stopped. As much as we know everyone cares and want to keep informed, please realize that this is our mother in the hospital and we are not always up to texting her condition.

We will continue to e-mail when we can.

Thank You all for your continued support.
Kyle, Dana and Chad

Hello everyone

After a day full of appointments yesterday, not to many new things were discovered. The biggest piece of information is that treatment will start next week. We were hoping for it to be sooner but it looks like it won't start until after Christmas. She had a simulation yesterday, so she is all marked and ready for radiation.

As of right now, she is still having an extremely hard time breathing and is exhausted. She was prescribed morphine in hopes to relax her body and to make breathing easier. We haven't had time to see if there is a difference.

Once again, thank you all for the support and love.

Dear Family and Friends,

First, we would like to thank you all immensely for all the love and support you have shown us in the past few weeks. We realize that this e-mail is not very personal but we thought it was necessary to reach out to those of you who have shown so much concern.

We would like to start a e-mail to keep you all informed. We know that there is a lot of uneasiness and in order to keep the house quieter, and to keep our sanity we are hoping that this approach can keep everyone better informed and help us from having to be on the phone every minute of every day. We will try to update on things you all would like to know about, such as when certain treatments are starting.

We really do appreciate all the love support and offers of help. We would really like to thank all of you for the meals, grocery's, help with the daycare and especially the thoughts and prayers.

As of today we are still waiting on a treatment schedule. Today (Monday) is a day full of appointments and will hopefully bring the first radiation treatment. Right now, she is still very tired, extremely short of breathe so treatment can't start soon enough. So many have offered help with rides and until we know times and dates we don't know how much outside help we will need. But chances are we will be contacting those of you who have offered.

We'll keep you informed on her daily condition. Most days she is up to visitors and phone calls but there are days where she is not. We continue to try and instill the method that has worked best for us so far, please contact us before stopping in.

E-mail and texting are really practical ways to get ahold of us. It is very waring to answer the phone and the same questions all day but we do try our best.

Please feel free to to forward any e-mails to people you think might be appropriate but please also remember our mother is a very private person and would like to keep details of her illness as such.


Thank you all so much
Kyle, Dana and Chad

Next years Relay for Life website is up and running. Please visit and join our team.
Team Yellow 2010
http://main.acsevents.org/goto/teamyellow2010