Badge Policy

My cousin, which is a DG alumna, died this past Saturday (June 14th, 2003) and was cremated. I came across her badge, and I am a ZTA. What should I do to her badge? We were very close and was wondering about the DG badge policy. I will do what I need to with it but would prefer to keep it due to the fact she was cremated and we were close.

She was a DG at University of South Carolina (Columbia). Her name is Michelle Sealy.

[WhiteDaisy128]

I am so very sorry about the loss of your cousin. I went through the loss of my mother just 3 months ago. I know how hard it is to lose family members. I see no problem with keeping her badge (I wear my mom's DG badge proudly), even though you can't wear it. Does she happen to have a daughter you might be able to give it to? In my mom's will, it stated that she wanted a certain sorority sister to have her badge in hopes that one day her daughter (me!!) might pledge DG. I am so lucky that I did get to share initiation with her before she passed away. You should contact Ginny (ginny@deltagamma.org) to let her know of your cousin's death. It will be published in the next issue of the ANCHORA. Include her full name (including maiden) and chapter. Again, my deepest sympathy.

In my Father's house are many rooms;
if it were not so, I would have told you.
I am going there to prepare a place for you
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back and take you to be with
me that you also may be where I am.
John 14:2&3

[CutiePie2000]

I am sorry for your loss.

This is the Delta Gamma "Director of Fraternity Jewelry"
carol@deltagamma.org
(Carol Green)
She will know what to do.

[AUDeltaGam]

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss

She didn't have any children, unfortunately. She had a rare disease called Wagener's Granulatosis which caused her nose cartilage to deteriorate in which she had to have a nasal prosthesis and it deteriorated her vocal cords and she had to have a traech in order to talk.

She died because the disease came out of remission and attacked her heart.

Ya'll are really great girls! I can see why she joined your group of girls! Too bad ya'll don't have a chapter at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by scpiano211
Ya'll are really great girls! I can see why she joined your group of girls! Too bad ya'll don't have a chapter at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.

Thank you for your kind words.
As for Winthrop University...well, never say never!

[WhiteDaisy128]

For your cousin, my mom, lost DG's, families and friends.

God's Garden

God looked around His garden
And found an empty place.
He then looked down upon the earth,
and saw your tired face.
He put His arms around you
And lifted you to rest.
God's garden must be beautiful
He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering
He knew that you were in pain
He knew that you would never
Get well on earth again.
He saw the road was getting rough,
and hills were hard to climb.
So He closed your weary eyelids,
And whispered "Peace be thine".
It broke our hearts to lose you
but you didn't go alone
For part of us went with you
The day God called you home.

One of my sisters sent that to me after my mom passed away. I thought it was so touching.

[AUDeltaGam]

Originally posted by scpiano211

Ya'll are really great girls! I can see why she joined your group of girls! Too bad ya'll don't have a chapter at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.

Thank you And ZTA has always been a personal favorite of mine. You've got a great chapter at Auburn

yep she was! wow! it IS a small world. when she was in People magazine she received a lot of mail and stuff. she and her family didn't realize how many people actually had what she had.

Where did you find that article (or first 100 words for that matter)? I never read the article but heard it was a very well written one. I am glad it represented her and DG well.

WHITEDAISY your poem really touched my heart because it is so true about Michelle. She led a hard life because of the traech and nasal prosthesis. She was very conscience about all of that. She was a very pretty lady with or without all the things that went wrong cosmetically. She was a beautiful person inside and out. She suffered from those who stared and talked about her all the way to health problems caused by the Wagener's Granulomatosis. She was cremated because she didn't want to be seen in death as she was seen in living. She didn't want to come to see me because I had roommates. She was afraid I would be embarrassed which I would NOT be at all! I have never known her without the traech. I remember her with her "real" nose but the prosthesis wouldn't have bothered me because I knew what went wrong. It bothered me because she was so sick in prior years. Thanks so much for the poem!

I have a picture of her and I am going to print that poem and reframe the picture so I can put that poem beside her picture. If I keep the badge I will put it in the frame as well.

Disfigured by disease, Carolina coed Michele Sealy shows that courage is a thing of beauty. Giovanna Breu.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1986 Time, Inc.

It was rush week at the University of South Carolina, and freshman Michele Sealy had her heart set on going Greek -- specifically, with the Delta Gammas. But she was not sure of her chances. From the time she was 12, Michele's life has been a litany of pain and a catalog of hospitals. A rare cancer-like disease that attacks cartilage had disfigured her by destroying her sinuses, windpipe and eventually her nose. She would have to attend the sorority rush party with an artificial nose held to her face by magnets implanted in her skull. And minor surgery that day had left her temporarily mute.

''I was uneasy about going,'' Michele admitted. But she went. Recalls chapter president Amy McMillan: ''I thought she'd been in an accident. Michele was writing everything down, and she told me about her situation. I thought, my God, for her to go through rush without embarrassment takes self-confidence. I was really touched.''

Pat Sealy, 45, Michele's mom, had asked her daughter how she might handle rejection. ''I'll be real disappointed,'' Michele had replied. ''I'll cry -- and I'll be okay.'' Her tears a week later though were those of joy as, amid hugging and cheering, she was welcomed as a new Delta Gamma pledge. ''Michele has such guts,'' marveled family friend Donna Rayner. ''She goes about it knowing she might be defeated, and she's won.''

It has been that way ever since a day in 1979 when Michele's medical nightmare began with nosebleeds and sinus pain. Antibiotics didn't help, so Michele went to the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston where, despite a biopsy, medical experts could not settle on a diagnosis. Doctors decided to treat her for a condition called midline granuloma, requiring radiation therapy. But 25 such treatments brought no improvement.

At home in Columbia, S.C. (Mi chele's dad, Robert, 47, is an auditor for the state department of education), she continued to suffer from excruciating sinus infections, which hospitalized her. ''I think we almost lost her then,'' remembers her mother. After another biopsy, doctors concluded Michele had Wegener's granulomato sis, a disease that affects the sinuses and the larynx. She was put on chemotherapy with the drugs prednisone and Cytoxan.

Still her travails did not end. In March 1982 she was hospitalized when her bladder hemorrhaged, a complication brought on by the Cytoxan. A painful eye-duct infection 13 months later landed her back in the hospital. By the next year Wegener's had spread to her larynx and trachea, forcing doctors to cut a ''trach'' (breathing hole) in her throat; now Michele could talk only with a hand-held electronic synthesizer that made her sound like a robot. And if all that weren't enough, complications from the prednisone produced hip pains requiring yet another operation that put her on crutches.

Yet, far from being crushed, Michele was determined to go to college. She had more than made up for lost schooling -- with homebound studies and summer sessions -- to graduate from Irmo High School a year ahead of time because she knew her senior year would be spent undergoing her most crucial series of operations to date.

The Sealys were referred last year to Dr. William Panje, chairman of otolaryngology -- head and neck surgery -- at the University of Chicago Medical Center. An innovative surgeon who claims he ''transplants anything and everything to build parts for the head,'' Panje, 43, proposed to rebuild Michele's nose and restore her voice. ''She had skin over her nose, but the disease had eaten out the inside,'' he found. But when he created an internal prosthesis through her mouth, the skin began to fall apart and a hole appeared in the middle of her face. ''Her skin in that area,'' he explained, ''had very few blood vessels because of the disease and radiation and so could not tolerate any pressure.''

For awhile Michele made do with a Band-Aid over her facial hole. Five months later Panje tried a new technique, implanting a stainless-steel pin, about as thick as cardboard, with a rare-earth magnet containing the me talic element cobalt, to which an artificial nose could be held. He also reconstructed Michele's voice box, reaming out scar tissue ''as hard as cement'' and replacing it with a plastic tube wrapped with skin graft.

The fitting for a false nose, made of a silicon material, even provided some humor. Pat Sealy laughed when early models were tried on Michele (''I told her she wouldn't want a Cybill Shepherd or Morgan Fairchild nose''). Ultimately Dr. Louis Fine fashioned one by studying old photos of Michele and observing Pat's for inspiration. Now, when Michele wears glasses, the nose blends perfectly, and it is so secure she can swim with it in place.

The trial is not entirely over for Michele. Though she still must undergo local surgery every two weeks to dilate her breathing tube, she can now talk by covering the hole in her throat. If all goes well, the neck hole can be closed in about a year. Her doctor is more cautious on Michele's long-term prognosis. ''She has been in remission for two years, a very good sign,'' says Panje, ''but Wegener's can come back, or stay away forever.'' And if her facial skin and tissue rejuvenate, he adds, ''We can always do a permanent nose reconstruction later.''

But Michele is not a 19-year-old who sits and waits. Before starting college this term, she worked part-time typing and filing at the oncology (tumor) clinic at a local hospital. She spent time each summer counseling at a camp for kids with cancer. Now at the university, she carries a full course load and wouldn't miss a football game. She still commutes from home to the campus nearby, but she's lobbying her parents about moving into a dorm.

''Michele missed so much of her teenage years by being in hospitals,'' says Pat Sealy, ''that her dad and I probably will let her do anything she wants.''

Oh you're very welcome!

[WhiteDaisy128]

Wow, I am so impressed by how braves she was during her life. Most people will never have that courage. She really does sound like a very beautiful woman. I'm glad you liked the poem...it helped me a lot. I think framing the poem, her picture, and her badge is a lovely idea. And you never know when another special DG will come into your life (daughters? grand daughters eventually? or maybe another story published in People about a DG that needs a little courage? etc.) who deserves to wear her badge.