'I want to be here...' Grand Ledge principal is on the job, with her students, fighting cancer

GRAND LEDGE - Julie Taylor has been immersed in the lives of 12- and 13-year-olds for more than a decade.

As principal at Hayes Middle School she greets them in the hallways, chats with them in the main office and observes them in their classrooms. She runs into students and their families in grocery store check out lines, at restaurants and local events.

If you've been in education as long as she has — nearly 20 years — odds are you'll serve as principal to at least some of your former students' children too.

And last month, in a hospital hallway, a seventh grade student was standing by her side when she learned she had cancer.

Severe abdominal pain had landed Taylor in the emergency room. Her student, there with a parent who was being seen by hospital staff, had walked over to greet Taylor just as a doctor used the word "leukemia."

“My student looked at me and said, ‘Mrs. Taylor, are you going to die?’”

“I said, ‘Honey, everybody’s going to die sometime. I hope I’m not going to die now.”

Then Taylor, 57, urged her student to go back to their mother. She firmly requested to be moved to a more private room.

"Then I fell apart.”

Kids have always come first with Taylor, whether it be her own — she raised three — or the more than 800 she oversees as a Grand Ledge Public Schools' administrator.

Her diagnosis of myelofibrosis, a rare cancer of the bone marrow, hasn't changed that.

Taylor needs a stem cell transplant. In the meantime she says she's where she needs to be. At work.

"What am I going to do?" Taylor said on a Monday morning from her office. "Sit at home and feel sorry for myself? I want to be here until the day they tell me I can’t be here. I love my job.”

'Something's not right'

If a tragic encounter hadn't redirected her, Taylor never would have become an educator. 

More than 30 years ago, she was a young mom, working as a unit coordinator at a local hospital and studying to become a nurse.

One day Taylor was leaving the hospital gift shop after buying a pack of gum on her lunch break, just as a young father ran in to the lobby carrying his son. The child, 2, was covered in blood.

“He had backed over him,” Taylor said. "I can picture it to this day. I felt so helpless. I’d never seen so much blood. It was gut-wrenching. I had children at home. Your mind goes all kinds of places.”

Days later Taylor went to counselors at Lansing Community College, laid out the credits she had already acquired and asked for help finding another career option.

Teaching made the most sense. Taylor started her career with Eaton Rapids Public Schools and has been in Grand Ledge since 1999.

In truth, Taylor loves middle school students, who she described as "caught between elementary innocence and high school worldliness."

"You have to be able to go with the flow of the mood swings, because we certainly have them here," Taylor said. "It’s astounding, but they’re very kind-hearted. I don’t think there are bad kids. There are just bad moments, and hopefully those don’t define them.”

Michael Johnson, Grand Ledge assistant superintendent for human resources and operations, said Taylor is "firm but kind."

She works with students through their struggles, Johnson said. 

"She does what's best for kids. She doesn't attack the person. She attacks the problem."

Taylor's own life-threatening health problem presented itself slowly, over the summer.

Yard work on her family farm in Eaton Rapids became difficult. Tasks she normally enjoyed – like cutting weeds, caring for her horses, gardening and mowing, began wearing her out.

“Absolutely fatigued,” she said. “Everything just felt like it took so much longer to do. If I cleaned the house I’d have to sit down and take breaks.”

Taylor had her blood pressure checked, and medication adjusted. 

After students and staff returned to Hayes Middle School in August, she went in for a wellness check. Her lab work showed abnormal results.

“Something’s not right,” Taylor told her husband David. “There’s something wrong.”

By the time Taylor went to the emergency room she had lost 32 pounds in just over a month.

Tests revealed her spleen was two and a half times its normal size. Her bone marrow isn't producing enough stem cells, and a transplant, doctors tell her, is her best chance "in the fight of her life." 

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'She is not just a principal'

Last week Taylor was at work and preparing for an upcoming meeting with doctors at the University of Michigan.

If and when a stem cell donor can be found, they'll perform the transplant in Ann Arbor, she said. She'd be in the hospital for at least a month, and required to stay within 20 minutes of it for up to two more months after she's discharged.

Earlier this month, after returning to Hayes, teachers and students were given a basic explanation of her illness.

Being open about her cancer wasn’t easy, Taylor said, but her students and staff, along with the community, deserved to know.

Some students have battled cancer themselves, others have family members who have been diagnosed. Many understand, she said, and others identify with her journey.

“Kids, they just step up,” she said."I want them to know that even in the face of adversity you can be strong.”

The routine trips Taylor once made through the school's halls in between each class period aren't possible anymore, but she still visits each classroom once a day and spends time in the hallways and cafeteria when students eat lunch.

Taylor's already started taking oral chemotherapy, and manages pain with medication.

School secretary Laura Konen said Taylor is "a fighter."

"She is not just a principal," Konen said. "She's got a lot of support here. She wants to be here and the kids like her to be here."

Taylor said countless staff, parents and community members have told her they're registering to become stem cell and bone marrow donors. Her sisters, children and husband are doing the same, she said.

"I’ll tell you, if love and prayers could cure cancer I’d be all set," Taylor said. "I’d be golden.” 

Daughter Danielle Jahnke said her family has started an online fundraising campaign to help pay for her medical expenses, and two of Taylor's grandchildren, who are students at Willow Ridge and Wacousta elementary schools in Grand Ledge, will sell bracelets this week in her honor. At $2 each, they read "#TaylorFamilyStrong."

"She is the rock of our family," Jahnke said. "She always has been. I think she's a pretty humble person and she doesn't see herself as a leader in the community, but she is."

Taylor said the outpouring of support means a great deal.

“I didn’t realize how many people’s lives I’ve touched,” Taylor said, in tears. “Parents have been very kind. Former students are amazing."

And her students? Many have hugged her, and told her they are praying for her.

“Prayers are good,” she tells them. “You just take care of you and continue to pray. That’s all I need.”

Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at (517) 528-2075 or rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.

Be a match 

To register to become a bone marrow or stem cell donor people between the ages of 18 to 44 can visit www.bethematch.org to fill out a questionnaire and request a testing kit. The kits, which include a mouth-swab, are mailed to applicants with pre-paid postage for its return.

Donations can also be made to help Julie Taylor with her medical expenses at https://www.gofundme.com/julie-taylor039s-myelofibrosis-fight .