'Love Like Libby': Grandmother chronicles granddaughter's cancer journey

Oct. 18—CLINTON — As Dee Tipton's granddaughter, Libby Thulen, continued her battle with leukemia two years ago, she asked her grandmother a question during an over-night visit.

"Mema, do you think you could help me write a book about my journey with cancer," the girl asked during that fall 2020 visit.

Tipton gave the girl a blank journal and helped her begin by writing down places, feelings, and the names of people in Libby's life who would later be depicted in the book. Libby, who even included her favorite Beanie Baby squirrel named "Nuts", decided she wanted the story to be about a caterpillar and how difficult it is to become a monarch butterfly.

Libby, then 12, died in June 2021. The book not yet finished, Tipton decided to carry out the work they started and completed what is now a children's book titled "Love Like Libby: Libby's Caterpillar Story of Cancer".

"Our desire and our prayer is that this book reaches as many families as it can," said Tipton, who recently donated a copy of the book to the Clinton Public Library.

Written to help people better understand what someone who's fighting cancer is experiencing, the book quickly gained popularity on Amazon after it was independently published July 5.

So far, all customer reviews have rated the book at five stars and, in addition to the approximately 50 copies that have been sold in person, Amazon has sold about 550 copies of the 36-page book at $9.99 each.

Libby was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia B-Cell leukemia in May 2018, when she was 9 years old. She received treatment at the University of Iowa Stead Family Hospital for Children in Iowa City. Her treatment ended in July 2020 and she entered remission.

But on Jan. 4, 2021, Libby's family learned she'd relapsed and would be unable to receive a needed bone marrow transplant. That April, Libby shaved the long curly hair, which had grown in during her remission, to show support for another West Carroll School District student who'd been diagnosed with the same kind of cancer that Libby had.

The next month, she cut hair at MacLean-Fogg Co. north of Thomson, Illinois, to raise money for cancer research and before she would go to Minneapolis to receive CAR T-cell therapy.

But the therapy didn't work. Libby was transported from Minneapolis back to the Stead Family Children's Hospital, where she died June 26, 2021.

"After that," Tipton says, "it was hard for me to be OK."

In January, Tipton came across the journal and thought of a longtime friend, Dona Bark, who she thought might help her finish writing the story. Bark, who didn't know Libby very well, felt compelled to ease Tipton's pain and told her that she would help.

They met weekly and constantly spoke in between those meetings, with Tipton telling Bark what she wanted in the book and Bark writing it down.

Once finished, they sought feedback from professional authors, as well as Bark's grandkids, and self-published the book in July.

Clinton Public Library's Kendra Evers, who Tipton frequently visited at the library to ask questions while writing the book, says the library does have some material on the subject of death and how to approach it with children, but trying to find "good approachable books to put in our collection" has proven to be somewhat difficult, leaving a need for a book like Tipton and Bark's.

"It has been healing," Tipton says in regard to writing the book. "She was a kind of soul that just touched so many."

Evers says once the book has been catalogued, it will be available to check out in about two weeks. It is otherwise only currently available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Love-Like-Libby-Libbys-Caterpillar/dp/B0B6XRZGT5.

Tipton also is working on trying to make it available through Barnes & Noble and Hobby Lobby.

All proceeds from book sales go to the LoveLikeLibby Foundation — created by Thulen's mother, Nicole Thulen, in 2021- which has pledged $50,000 to cancer research in the next three years. The second annual Love Like Libby Golf Scramble fundraiser last month alone raised $20,000.