Jerika Bolen is only fourteen years old and has planned her own death. This isn’t what you would call suicide however, Jerika is suffering from an incurable disease and has scheduled when she will be removed from and her ventilator.
But before that happened, she wanted to do something and you will be amazed by this story coming from this strong young lady and her final dance on earth.
Jerika Bolen was suffering from type 2 spinal muscular dystrophy, which is a disease that has no cure and the person with it usually goes through intense pain. Those with this disease normally don’t survive beyond their adolescent years. Jerika chose that after 38 surgeries, she will go off of her ventilator after she does one last thing with her mother.
“Type 2 spinal muscular atrophy (SMA II) is a rare disease that causes debilitating pain and in her case the loss of all muscle control, save for parts of her face and hands. She has had surgeries to place rods in her back, remove all but a shard of her hip bones and fuse parts of her spine together with screws. The pain is regularly at a 8-10 scale, with 10 being the worst pain you have ever felt.” [via Washington Post]
She doesn’t want to fight anymore. A few months ago, she endured her 38th surgery, which was yet another procedure to manage the crushing pain in her back and hips. She decided it would be her last. However, at 14, Jerika is still a regular girl who wants to go to prom and have one last dance.
“I sat myself down and I thought, ‘Jerika, am I here for me or am I here for my family? I can’t even do anything besides lie in bed because I’m so sore.’”
Jen Bolen, Jerika’s mom, is obviously torn by her daughter’s decision to go off of life support at the end of August. As a nurse, she knows all too well that her daughter’s chances at living very long are not good even with life support.
“I don’t know how to stop fighting for her,” Jen told the Post-Crescent. “That’s all I’ve done since the day she was diagnosed when she was 8 months old.”
Jerika recalled coming to understand her difficult diagnosis and her decision to stop fighting. “The first week, I was crying all the time,” Jerika said. “I was constantly thinking, ‘Oh, I’m not ever going to have kids, I’m not going to ever have a family, blah, blah, blah.’”
Now, things are focused on the prom, which will be held in Jerika’s honor at the Grand Meridian, an event hall near the water tower in Appleton, Wisconsin. “I’m just hoping that everyone can be happy,” Jerika said.
She will be wearing a dress in her favorite colors of green and black and dance to all different kinds of music, Jerika, who also loves punk jewelry, said.
“They’ll play pop hits, but mostly it will be emo music such as My Chemical Romance. They’ll celebrate Jerika with hors d’oeuvres, cake, and dancing,” reports the Washington Post.
Then, at the end of this summer, Jerika’s last summer on earth, she will say her final goodbyes.”I have been realizing I’m going to get to walk and not have this pain anymore and not have to, like, live this really crappy life,” Jerika said.
After that appointment with her mother and her counselor, where Jerika told her mother her wish to go off life support, she recalled, “[W]e cried and we cried and we cried. But after a couple days, I was running around so happy. I was like, ‘I’m going to be able to walk, I’m going to be with God, I’m going to be free.’”
