'Forever grateful': Terminally-ill girl thanks Edmonton supporters with music
'I wish these wishes would never end,' 10-year-old writes in song to thank her support network
Ten-year-old Rheanna Trepanier says she feels old.
Last October, doctors discovered four tumours rooted deep in Trepanier's brain. They gave her less than a year to live.
But it's not her diagnosis that makes Trepanier feel older than 10. She said it's everything her hometown has helped her to experience since.
In the past five months, Trepanier has checked almost every item off her bucket list.
She met Connor McDavid, went dog-sledding in Yellowknife, held a bazooka and was arrested by Edmonton police. She managed Home Depot for a day, hosted a radio show and went on a Disney cruise with her family.
Trepanier said she wrote the bucket list randomly to "just do something you never ever will do."
To thank the people who made it happen, Trepanier recorded a song with help from a professional studio in Edmonton.
"I like to sing," she said. "So then we kind of just thought about making a song with all the stuff I wanted to do.
"I just wanted to do a little thank-you song and tell people what I did."
Trepanier said she felt shy about singing at first and worried people wouldn't like her voice. She practised for hours and pored over the lyrics of what she described as the biggest project of her life.
"It's worth it to thank people," she said. "They paid for my family to have fun ... I'm honoured for people to help me do the kind of stuff that I want."
The song details some of her favourite bucket list adventures, like the time Trepanier met Connor McDavid — but got no kiss.
Her mother, Marissa Trepanier, said the bucket list has helped her entire family cope.
The single mother of four was recently laid off and said she struggled to check items off her daughter's bucket list before friends and strangers stepped in to help.
"I wouldn't have been able to do these things for my children on my own," she said. "To be able to have these memories created with my family, nobody can ever take that from me.
"It's just amazing for the kids to be able to do all these things together so they have their memories and it just really feels special to be an Edmontonian."
Marissa said she watched with pride as her daughter worked on the song.
"I'm not brave enough to write a song and sing it for people and put it out there, so that took a lot," she said.
"I could sit and write a thank-you card to thousands of people but I don't think a thank-you card would be enough to show my gratitude."
For now, Marissa said she's taking her daughter's treatment one day at a time.
She sets five different alarms, starting at 6:30 a.m. and ending at 8 p.m., to give her daughter the medication she needs. Rheanna has to take more than 20 pills a day.
The 10-year-old finished her most recent round of chemotherapy last week and an MRI showed the tumours have shrunk. But Marissa said doctors are cautious and worried about weight loss. They plan to hook a feeding tube directly to Rheanna's stomach.
"She's just so brave and I feel so blessed to have a girl like Rheanna," Marissa said.
"Some days I feel like I'm doing this all on my own and it's very difficult, especially on the days that she's sick."
But then she remembers her daughter's bucket list.
"It kind of feels like we're not doing this alone and there's so many people here helping us through," she said. "I'm forever grateful."