enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Maddie is making progress since her initial treatments. "Seeing Maddie run across the room is just joyful to me," LeVan said.

enlarge 2002 Press Herald file

With support from her husband, Brad Johnson, and daughter, Maddie, who is being treated for leukemia, Emily LeVan is pursuing her goal of qualifying for the Olympic marathon, one of four Maine women preparing for the marathon trials.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Emily LeVan is continuing to pursue her goal of qualifying for the Olympic marathon as a way of maintaining the family’s normal lifestyle as her daughter, Maddie, undergoes treatment for leukemia.

DOUBLE CHALLENGE
www.twotrials.org

A mother training for the Olympic marathon trials

A daughter fighting childhood leukemia

ABOUT THE DISEASE

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a fast-growing cancer of the white blood cells.

Lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that fights infections. In ALL, the bone marrow makes lots of unformed cells called blasts that normally would develop into lymphocytes but are abnormal. They do not develop and cannot fight infections.

Moreover, they grow quickly and crowd out the normal red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets that the body needs.

Source: National Marrow Donor Program

To a digital photo frame for a slide show of Maddie, mostly mugging with her cousins, occasionally posing with her parents at a marathon in Minnesota.

To her battery-operated pink princess cash register, seemingly out of place on this saltwater farm on the Chewonki Foundation campus, where her dad, instead of using a tractor, hitches up a draft horse named Sal for skidding felled trees from a 150-acre woodlot.

To a stereo, where her mom played a special song called "Maddie Johnson" with lyrics that included watching hockey with her dad, cooking with her mom, solving Dora the Explorer mysteries and correctly saying her ABC's.

"It's put out by a nonprofit group that makes songs for kids with life-threatening illnesses," explained her mom, Emily LeVan, as Maddie, arms upraised, unabashedly danced to the beat.

LeVan, one of four Maine residents preparing for the Olympic women's marathon trials in April, smiled as she watched her daughter's gyrations.

"It certainly changes what's important in life," she said. "For so long I thought, 'Olympic trials -- it's such a big deal.' And it's still a big deal. But this -- having a healthy, happy kid -- this is the most important thing.

"Seeing Maddie run across the room is just joyful to me."

Maddie's life-threatening illness is leukemia. Specifically, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL.

She was diagnosed in early November, the day after the New York City Marathon, following a period of lethargy and a dry, hacking cough. As a baby and a toddler, Maddie rarely even caught a cold.

"When a kid gets sick, it's just devastating, absolutely devastating," LeVan said. "I felt like I'd been knocked down, that my world had been completely turned upside down."

ALTERING PLANS?

LeVan's initial inclination was to abandon her Olympic trials plans in order to care for Maddie. After all, this wouldn't be the first time. LeVan also qualified for the 2004 trials in St. Louis but didn't run because she gave birth less than three months before the race.

Her husband, Brad Johnson, and Maddie herself convinced LeVan otherwise. She had been a relative latecomer to distance running, playing field hockey at Bowdoin College, where she and Brad met. In her one semester of running track, she set a school record in the 400-meter run that still stands.

LeVan entered the 2002 Maine Marathon with hopes of breaking three hours. She succeeded, beating all but two men in 2 hours, 47 minutes, 38 seconds. She was the first American woman finisher at Boston in 2005 and 2006. As a late addition to the U.S. marathon team for the 2005 IAAF world championships in Helsinki, Finland, she broke 2:40 for the first time.

Her qualifying time for this year's trials, 2:37:01 from Boston in '06, makes her one of 19 women to meet the 'A' standard of 2:39, which means her expenses will be paid. Only 13 women ran faster times.

The trials are scheduled for April 20 in Boston, the day before the 112th Boston Marathon, on a loop course through downtown Boston and Cambridge that begins and ends on Boylston Street, the traditional marathon finish.

FOCUSING ON NORMALCY

During Maddie's initial 10 days of treatment at the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center, which also was where LeVan, a 35-year-old emergency room nurse, did her pediatric rotation, Emily and Brad went for daily walks. Either her mom or his parents would kick them out of Maddie's room in mid-afternoon so they could have some time alone.

They talked about how their lives would change, how they would maintain a semblance of normalcy, how they didn't want the diagnosis to shape their lives.

They would eliminate daycare for the immediate future, to limit Maddie's exposure with a compromised immune system. LeVan would reduce her hospital workload...