Leah's article

Leah found courage reading the stories of others and wanted her story to be shared. The article below was published yesterday morning in the local newspaper and she was able to see it before she passed away that evening.

The newspaper image may not be easy to read for some so the text is included at the bottom. 

 ‘She is our hero’

Leah Ploutz of Portsmouth, a mother of two young children, has touched many lives and inspired family, friends and acquaintances during her 2 1/2-year battle against cancer. Throughout the fight, she has remained upbeat and has shared her thoughts by way of a blog. 

By Sean Flynn | Staff photographer

PORTSMOUTH
Leah Ploutz, 34, has never seen herself as “fighting cancer” or as a “survivor.” Since being diagnosed with colorectal cancer in September 2012, she has considered herself a “warrior” on a journey through cancer and back to her life without the disease.
Now, the end of the journey seems to be approaching — not in the way that everyone around her had hoped for — and she wants people to know her story.
Family and friends say Ploutz was inspired by other people’s stories and wants anyone in a position similar to hers to know they are not alone. She has chronicled her journey during the past 2years at leahstatus.blogspot.com, sharing her incredibly moving and heartbreaking story with anyone who reads the posts. There are photos of Ploutz, her husband, Bryan, and their two young children, Elly and Drew.
“I used to measure time by knowing the distance between my treatment appointments, but now there are no treatment appointments,” she wrote on March 2. “The talk with my eldest child went as well as expected over the weekend. The gist she got out of it was that some people get sick with cancer and get cured and some die because the medicine doesn’t work anymore. I know we got through to her, she’s 6, so it’s a little easier. My youngest is 3.5 so I am not sure what he grasps. But I feel as though we did an adequate job and that we said what needed to be said for now.”
“Her children are her world,” said Kiki Finn of Newport, a friend and colleague at Sea Corp of Middletown. Finn is the business manager there.
“She lights up whenever her children walk into the room, no matter how bad she is feeling,” close friend Kim McCarthy said of Ploutz.
“She is so full of love,” said McCarthy, a mechanical engineer at Sea Corp. “It’s her intrinsic personality, but it also comes from the people around her. I first met Leah about nine years ago when I started an internship at Sea Corp. It wasn’t long till she took me under her wing, and not just with work. My life is better because she has been in it.”
Ploutz’s many blog posts show she is someone who finds joy in life. In her most recent posting to date, written on March 12, she explained how she was able to get out in a golf cart to go to a favorite spot. She always has loved the outdoors, friends and family say, and led a very active lifestyle.
“My neighbors got together and got some plowing, shoveling, and who knows what else done to make this happen,” Ploutz wrote. “There is a little forest area near my house where I love to walk and it is gorgeous no matter what season, with snow, fallen leaves, summer sun and grass or spring flowers. I thought I’d never make it out to this area again to walk because it is too far from the street and too hard to get there on foot. My feet are so swollen and of course it isn’t wheelchair accessible.” There, she could “sit and soak up the sun for a while with some good friends,” she wrote. “Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen!”
Ploutz has a brother, Ben Braman, who got together with McCarthy and Finn at Finn’s home Sunday afternoon to talk about his sister. She is a financial analyst and manager at Sea Corp, a company of about 330 employees. Ploutz has a large extended family on Aquidneck Island and she is known throughout her Carriage Drive neighborhood, so she is surrounded by a large support group.
“She has affected all of our lives, as a wonderful person and in the way she is dealing with this,” Finn said. “It’s truly inspirational. When I think of Leah, I think hero. She is our hero — courageous, strong and amazing.”
“It’s touching to walk down Leah’s street and see every single house — a quartermile in each direction — has a mailbox with her ‘Cancer Warrior’ magnet, many cars too,” Braman said.
“The blog was originally created to update Leah’s numerous friends, family and co-workers during her initial colon cancer surgery day and recovery,” he said. “It then evolved as a place where Leah was able to express herself as she navigated her new life, now over 280 posts in the making. She’s had hundreds of page views per day the past two years, entirely by followers discovering her by word of mouth, as up until the second week of March, her blog was set to be hidden from search engines.”
The blog details the ups and downs of dealing with the cancer as it metastasized — the surgeries, the chemotherapy, the radiation treatments and the optimistic periods when the disease was in remission.
“She tried everything she could,” Finn said.
“We researched everything,” Braman said. “In January, she was in an immunotherapy trial that had some promising results. Unfortunately, it did not work out.”
“She is the least likely person to get sick,” Finn said. “She always took very good care of herself.”
Ploutz met her husband through a soccer league organized at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, where he is a mechanical engineer. She has been active in volleyball leagues in Newport for years, her friends said.
“She was a big runner,” Braman said. “She ran multiple times a week. She’s probably had less than a dozen (alcoholic) drinks in her life.”
About 10 years ago, Ploutz met Bill Goneau, an area business manager at Sea Corp, on a ski lift out west. He suggested she apply for a job at the company. She has a marketing and business degree from Northern Arizona University and after she was hired, she earned a master’s degree in human resources from Salve Regina University in Newport.
“She was very motivated,” Finn said. “She was a wonderful worker, someone we could always count on. She was very mature and very organized. She planned everything and had real control of her life. She got married, had children and had her job. (Since the diagnosis) it’s been very difficult, but she always had the most positive attitude.”
Ploutz has many skills, McCarthy said. “She is a brilliant photographer,” she said, showing framed prints of some of Ploutz’s photos.
Ploutz is the daughter of Catherine Lindsey Braman, one of six siblings who grew up in Newport, and James Braman, who grew up in a family of 11 children in Middletown.
“Leah has at least 20 cousins who live on the island,” Finn said. “She is close to all of them.”
The Braman family lived in Tuscon, Ariz., while Jim Braman was stationed there when the kids were young, but they all stayed connected to Aquidneck Island.
“We spent most of our summers here,” Ben Braman said. “We grew up in Newport and Middletown too, at least two months of the year.”
Ploutz’s summer jobs in Newport during her high school and college years included stints in the marina office at the Newport Harbor Hotel and Marina, the Newport Yachting Center and Christie’s restaurant, her brother said.
“Leah loves to laugh and share amusing events,” Braman said. “Her chosen username online was often the play on words ‘giggleah.’ I love getting, and will truly miss, her phone calls that start with, ‘So, I have a funny story to tell you,’ and I’ll forever miss dialing her to do the same. Or rolling our eyes at each other when our parents do something goofy.”
She is the organizer of gatherings and gift ideas, and makes sure everyone is included in the plans, he said.
“In her own home, even during the throes of chemo and now these past few weeks when she’s been running very low on energy, she can still be found writing dates on the fridge calendar and RSVPing her kids’ invitations to birthday parties,” Braman said.
“We typically think of a miracle as a manifestation of divine power with results that we consider to be impossible under the physical laws — such as being cured from a terminal form of cancer,” McCarthy said. “But what if a miracle was a shift in perception from fear to love ... to transport someone from their personal hell on earth (because of the disease) to a place where they are comfortable and able to embrace faith, healing and love? Leah is a miracle worker.”
On one of her blog posts, Ploutz recalls being a child and completing a puzzle featuring a little girl and the text: “Dear God, just Wow!”
“That’s how I felt today when I looked at the blog stats, 980 page views today,” she wrote. “That means that at least 980 times today, and the day’s not over, someone was thinking of me, ME. So my fellow followers, my friends, my family, the friends and family of friends, thank you. I have been flooded with emails, texts, and comments and feel so surrounded by love and that is what I need. I don’t know how to explain God’s puzzle ... but I feel as though if a miracle were to happen, he has everyone’s attention.”
Flynn@NewportRI.com

 The pictures:

Ben Braman shares stories about his sister Leah Ploutz, who is battling cancer. He is with Leah’s friends Kim McCarthy, left, and Kiki Finn.

Kim McCarthy holds a book of photographs from a fundraiser at the Elks Club for her friend Leah Ploutz of Portsmouth, who is battling cancer. 

Dave Hansen | Staff photographer 

  

Leah Ploutz is pictured with her husband, Bryan, daughter Elly and son Drew at Easton’s Beach in Newport.
[Contributed photo]