LAKEPORT, Calif. – Little Scarlett Michelle Reordan looks like any other healthy, vibrant and mischievous girl nearing the age of 3.
With her great big grin, sparkling eyes, platinum blonde hair, her penchant for singing lullabies to her family, fishing skills, playful spirit and enthusiasm, nothing really seems amiss.
But in the little girl's short life, she's been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, is undergoing treatment for leukemia and lost her mother to cancer.
“It’s an unbelievable story,” said her uncle, Ron Ladd.
Ladd and his wife Michelle – the sister of Scarlett's mother, Heather Reordan – have become Scarlett's legal guardians. The couple, which have a son in his 20s, are now raising the little girl.
He said Scarlett is doing well, but her leukemia will require close to another year of treatments, although the invasiveness of those treatments is lessening.
“She’s full of life and just having fun,” said Scarlett's father, Edward Mattson.
The story of Scarlett and her family is one of tremendous loss, but also one of incredible, overcoming love that they share not just with each other but with a large network of supportive friends.
Heather's story
A few months before Heather Reordan was due to give birth to Scarlett, her only child, she showed boyfriend Edward Mattson an odd mole that had been troubling her.
Mattson recalls telling her she needed to do something, with her following up with a dermatologist who urged her to wait to have it treated after the baby was born.
Reordan gave birth to Scarlett, her only child, on March 22, 2013. It was a happy time for her and her family.
Afterward, she went forward with having the mole treated. A biopsy was conducted and the diagnosis was stage three melanoma, Ladd said.
Mattson said the doctors had suggested that there may have been a connection between Reordan's pregnancy and the melanoma's development.
In fact, a January study released by the Cleveland Clinic found that melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – in on the rise in women of childbearing age.
The clinic's new research determined that those at the greatest risk are women younger than 50 who are pregnant or have recently been pregnant. Heather Reordan fit perfectly into that profile.
“After adjusting for age, tumor location, and stage, researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Dermatology & Plastic Surgery Institute discovered that women diagnosed with malignant melanoma during their pregnancy or within one year of giving birth were 5.1-times as likely to die, 6.9-times as likely to experience metastasis, and 9.2-times more likely to have a recurrence. The researchers believe pregnancy hormones may fuel the cancer,” the study noted.
Reordan subsequently went through a year of Interferon chemotherapy treatment. “I begged her not to do the Interferon,” Mattson said, explaining that he was afraid of the treatment killing her.
At that time, the Ladds moved to Lakeport from Crescent City, living right now the road, so they could help with the baby while Reordan went through her treatments.
Ladd said his wife essentially moved in with her sister, going back and forth to their home less than half a mile away when other friends and family came in to assist.
Ginny Reordan, Heather's mother, also practically moved in with her daughter and granddaughter to help care for them both, Ladd said.
The Ladds bonded with their little niece, and it was at that time that the discussion about legal guardianship started, Ladd said.
Then, on Dec. 29, 2014, the unthinkable – and unbelievable – happened: Scarlett was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
The diagnosis came about after Scarlett began to inexplicably experience a series of broken bones, a case of ringworm that wouldn't go away and lethargy. Mattson said they took the girl in for tests and her white blood cell count was found to be off the charts.
She began undergoing treatment at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, and fundraisers were held to help the family meet the costs.
“Trying to take care of two people with cancer at the same time is a little overwhelming,” Ladd said.
In addition to a benefit dinner held last February, an online fundraiser was started for Scarlett. That fundraiser is ongoing, and can be found at www.gofundme.com/scarlettmichelle1 . As of Saturday, $11,000 of the $20,000 goal had been raised.
A trust account for Scarlett also is available at Westamerica bank, account No. 2352178897.
Making decisions
At the time of Scarlett's diagnosis, Reordan's cancer was in remission. However, on April 1, 2015, doctors told her that it had come back, and with a vengeance, Ladd said.
Mattson believed the stress from dealing with Scarlett's leukemia caused Reordan's own health to deteriorate. “This was just killing Heather inside,” he said.
Ladd said everyone had hoped for the best, but by the time doctors found that the melanoma had come back, there already were four or five tumors. And from there, the situation grew bad very quickly.
“We don’t even know the count on the number of tumors she had,” said Ladd. They had metastasized throughout Reordan's body, including her bones and brain. “It just went all through her real fast.”
Based on the research the family had done, they found that from the initial diagnosis to stage three melanoma, the average lifespan is around five years or less, Ladd said.
“I think she hoped to have a little more time than she did, but was fully aware of the gravity of the situation,” he said of his sister-in-law.
Mattson said Reordan had originally been given a two-year survival estimate after the cancer recurred. Then the timeframe was reduced to nine months, as tumors continued to grow throughout her body, one making it likely that her arm would have to be amputated.
“Who wants to live like that?” he asked.
Although Mattson is heavily involved in his young daughter's life, Ladd said it was the consensus of the entire family that the Ladds should become Scarlett's legal guardians. “It's just an option that made sense, really.”
He added, “Michelle and Heather have always been really close.”
Ladd said he too had been close to his sister-in-law, his wife's kid sister, who he had known since she was a child.
Mattson agreed, explaining that he and Reordan had always agreed that, if something happened, Scarlett should live with the Ladds, noting the closeness between Michelle Ladd and Scarlett.
As a result of the fundraisers held for the family, Lakeport attorney Judy Conard donated consultation time to help do the legal guardianship work, Ron Ladd said.
Conard did all of the required paperwork, filing the necessary petition which resulted in letters being sent out to family members, notifying them of the legal guardianship process, none of which was disputed, he said.
The Ladds met with a court-appointed investigator, who visited their home, did a thorough background check, and met with Reordan and Mattson.
The matter then went to court, where a judge – agreeing with the investigator's findings – ruled that the Ladds should take on legal guardianship.
Ladd said the certified documents making he and his wife's legal guardianship of Scarlett official arrived on Aug. 17, 2015.
Two days later, on Aug. 19, Heather Reordan died. She was 36 years old.
“I believe she was almost hanging on those last few days to make sure everything was going to be OK with the baby,” Ladd said.
“Everybody loved her,” Mattson said of Reordan. “We miss her so much.”
A team effort
In the months since then, the Ladds have been settling into the routine of raising a young girl.
“It's been part of a team effort with other family and friends,” said Ladd, emphasizing they didn't do it on their own, and that there were too many people to name who form their support network. “We’ve had a lot of help.”
Mattson is actively involved with his daughter, and lives just down the street from the Ladds.
Mattson said Reordan had a lot of friends who have stepped up to offer their help. “She was just an easy person to be friends with,” he said, and those many friends have given incredible support.
In the midst of the family's changes, the county was hit by three large wildland fires. Ladd, a maintenance worker for the city of Lakeport, found himself with greater duties during the Valley fire particularly, as all local governments came together as part of the response.
At the same time, Scarlett came into the “maintenance phase” of her chemotherapy treatment. She's now making monthly – not weekly – trips to the Bay Area for the treatments, which require she be placed under anesthesia while the chemotherapy is administered into her spinal cord.
“The prognosis is great. Everything is right where they had hoped it would be,” Ladd said.
Because of her illness and her suppressed immune system, she hadn't been able to be around other children, which her family knew would be important for the already friendly and charismatic little girl to develop social skills.
But her uncle said she's been able to start attending preschool on a limited basis, going a few hours a day, four hours a week, and it's going well.
Still, once a month, she has to have her white blood cell counts checked. “You really have to be careful,” he said, explaining that a fever could put her in the hospital. “They tell us, let her be a kid, but use some common sense.”
Her circle of adventures had widened otherwise.
Ladd shares a lot of photos on his Facebook page of Scarlett's activities – which include frequent fishing trips with her uncle on the lakeshore.
She likes fishing, and is pretty self-sufficient, even getting out her own worms. “She’s awesome. She can reel her own pole in,” he said, adding, “I don’t think she does anything wrong.”
In the fall, she took part in the Lakeport Halloween parade for schoolchildren, in which she was dressed as a princess. She was escorted by her little friend Jaden, who devotedly held her hand throughout.
This Christmas she was at an age where her uncle said she started to really get into the celebration, enjoying singing the songs and watching the old favorites on television such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
She attended the downtown Lakeport Christmas celebration and got to sit on Santa's lap, asking for a real monkey.
Luckily, family friends obliged not with real monkeys but with stuffed ones after Ladd posted photos of her with Santa on Facebook.
The family has been able to get insurance to cover Scarlett's treatment, but there have been other costs, such as the trips to the Bay Area needed for Scarlett's appointments, and the fact that Michelle Lad had to give up her full-time job in Willits and now works part-time when she can.
“The bottom line is, it’s going to be very expensive,” Ron Ladd said, adding that they have no idea of the dollar figure.
However, for him, the most important thing he wants to communicate is the family's gratitude for the incredible support it has received from the community.
“I can’t even tell you how generous everyone has been,” he said.
In the midst of growing into her new life, Scarlett still has memories about the old.
When Heather Reordan was dying, Michelle Ladd sat down with Scarlett and told her that her mommy was really sick and that they couldn't fix her this time, and that she wasn't coming home but going to heaven.
Ron Ladd said the little girl asks about her mother, and he and his wife have researched how to handle her questions in the best ways possible.
“We don't to sweep it under the rug,” but want to deal with it, he said, adding that they keep pictures of Reordan all over the house.
Today, “She’ll tell people, unsolicited, that her mom is in heaven. I don’t know that she grasps that concept,” Ladd said of Scarlett.
Sometimes, Scarlett says she wants her mommy, which he said is a pretty normal reaction for a child that has endured what she has. The family does the best it can to respond to her.
“Who knows what’s right sometimes,” Ladd said.
Mattson said that he sees in his young daughter the same strength and intelligence that defined her mother. “Heather was the strongest woman I ever met in my life,” he said. “It’s the same thing I could say about my daughter. She’s just that way, too.”
Even at barely 2 years of age, she had stopped crying during the medical procedures she was required to undergo, which included plenty of needles and blood draws, her father said.
Reordan would have been 37 on Jan. 14. The day was pouring down rain, Mattson remembered. He spent the day with his little daughter.
But spring is right around the corner, and with it new life and another reason to celebrate – a happy and healthy Scarlett will turn 3 years old on March 22.
“I think we'll have a little party,” Mattson said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
