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Seventeen-year-old Ashley Gonzalez had an excruciating headache and was shaking Sept. 30. Teacher Susan Tawney sent her home.

Two days later, Gonzalez and her mother called Tawney from the hospital. Doctors had found a malignant, baseball-size tumor in Gonzalez’s brain, and she was about to be wheeled into surgery.
Tawney, who has taught Gonzalez at Northeast Guilford High School for three years, cried on the phone.

“Ms. Tawney, please don’t cry,” Gonzalez told her. “It’ll be OK.”

Since then, Gonzalez has continued to try to stay positive, despite chemotherapy and radiation treatments five days a week at Brenner Children’s Hospital in Winston-Salem. Doctors are unsure how the tumor will respond to treatments.

The community has helped by offering financial support to the high school senior and her mother, Angie Flores, who has been unable to work since becoming disabled in a car accident. They have no family, except one another.

Tawney and other teachers and staff members worked the counter at McDonald’s restaurant on Cone Boulevard one night, and the restaurant donated part of the proceeds to Gonzalez and her mother.

Chilo’s Mexican restaurant also donated proceeds from one evening’s sales.

“It’s been a community effort,” Tawney said.

Students in Northeast’s Beta Club decided to donate half of the cans from their food drive to the family, and the class of 1979 gave the leftover money from their reunion celebration fund. The Junior Civitans gave the family a gift card.

“She’s a really sweet person to be around, ... and she’s really good academically,” said Casey Whitlow, 16, a friend and classmate.

“We’re all trying to do stuff for her and her family. ... We’re just trying to take care of our own.”

On Tuesday, Tawney delivered a special gift to Gonzalez, a refurbished laptop computer, donated by Intrex owner Ramzi Ziade. She’ll use it to take advantage of Guilford County Schools’ online tutorials.

“Cool,” Gonzalez said, grinning and plugging it in.

Her mother quietly cried.

“I want to thank everybody’s that’s helped,” Flores said later, “for their support and their prayers. ... It’s hard.”

Flores said she worries constantly about Gonzalez, but “I try not to let her see it.”

Gonzalez hasn’t been in school since the week her tumor was diagnosed, but has stayed focused on her school work. A Guilford County Schools teacher comes to her home three times a week to bring her work and keep her on track for graduation.

“I want to graduate with my friends,” Gonzalez said. She’s taking the SAT in January and plans to become a neonatal nurse. She’s writing her senior project on ganglioglioma, the rare type of brain tumor she’s fighting.

“She loves school,” Flores said. “I think that’s why she gets down sometimes because she has to stay here instead of going to school.”
Tawney has become a contact person for students or community members wanting to help the family.

“She knows I’m a cancer survivor, too, so we have a connection,” Tawney said.

Many students are eager to help Gonzalez and have been affected by her struggle, Tawney said.

“I think it really hit some of them that kids are not invincible. ... We’ll get little comments where someone will whine about something, and someone else will say, 'We can’t complain. Think of Ashley.’ ”

People interested in helping Gonzalez should contact Tawney at 209-6719 or tawneys@gcsnc. com.

Contact Jamie Kennedy Jones at 373-7088 or jamie.kennedy @news-record.com