Person:Elana Brophy (1)

Elana loved sports, animals and most of all, life. She clung tenaciously to it through a two-year battle with cancer, always insisting that she would beat the rhabdomyosarcoma that riddled her body with tumors. Two weeks before she died, she was playing volleyball with her St. Pius teammates. About eight hours before she died, she was up walking around her Edgewood home. "She had the attitude she as going to beat it all the way up to the last few hours. She was not going to accept the fact that she was not going to be cured."

The cancer was first diagnosed when Elana began having stomach aches. Doctors found a tumor on the interior of her chest wall and a collapsed lung. She underwent two major surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and alternative drug treatment in Mexico in attempts to battle the disease into submission. Through it all, she continued to attend school, completing second and third grade, she would have begun fourth grade at St. Pius.

She excelled in soccer, basketball, softball and volleyball. At one point she played basketball with a 4 1/2 inch incision in her back. Elana also loved to watch sports. She was a Bengals fan, and the year before her death, with the help of former Bengals' quarterback Ken Anderson and his wife, received the orange beanie that running back Corey Dillon wore after his NFL record, 278 yard performance against the Denver Broncos in October 2000. The week before she died, Elana met Dillon at the Bengals training camp in Georgetown and he autographed the beanie and a replica jersey for her.

She had a chocolate lab retriever, Kodiak, and was trying to talk her parents into buying another dog. She also enjoyed cheerleading and jazz dancing.