Daughter’s cancer fight inspires mom to finish high school, help other families, go on to enroll in college

Tracey Hartman said she’d finish high school some day, but that day never came.

“I had numerous jobs. I was a salon manager. I always had good jobs and felt I was making good money,” Hartman said. “I thought, ‘Why go back?’ I kept pushing it off. I didn’t feel the need to do it. I said I would do it one day.”

Her daughter, Taylor, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a fast-growing cancerous brain tumor.

“I was there looking at her in the hospital, going through treatment, procedures, surgeries – all with courage and determination, not complaining, and I started feeling guilty that I didn’t have the oomph to go back and do my hard thing,” Hartman said.

In 2012, Hartman dropped out of High School during her senior year when her mom died of cancer.

“I had a lot going on and no one to talk to about it,” Hartman said. “I gave up a lot of things and school was one of them. I did not finish.”

Fourteen years after dropping out, Hartman enrolled in the City Colleges of Chicago’s Adult Education High School Diploma program.

Read the full story in the Cook County Chronicle