WINDSOR LOCKS, CT (WFSB) - Cassandra Callender died recently after her fight with cancer.

She found herself center stage as a teen when courts ruled she must undergo chemotherapy.

Tonight, her mother tells Eyewitness News she watched her daughter slowly die over the last five years.

For Jackie Fortin, she says their battle in court was never about the quantity of Cassandra Callender’s life, meaning how long she’d live, but the quality.

Strikingly beautiful, Cassandra Callender savored each moment alive behind her illness.

In her bout with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, she knew she wasn’t getting any better.

“So she lived it to the fullest as much as she could,” Fortin said. “She has been lived in living hell and so have I and to watch my child slowly deteriorate. They ripped my family apart. They ruined my daughter’s life.”

They, Fortin says, are the judges, medical team, and the Department of Children and Families.

In 2015, a judge ruled Callender would receive chemo after refusing it.

Under watch, she did.

Her and her mother, Fortin, called it poison and countered by saying the courts trampled their rights.

For the next five years, she sought various treatments in and out of the country, Fortin says.

The mother refers to this period as their “living hell.”

Nothing seemed to work as the cancer spread to Callender’s lungs.

Four months ago, she entered hospice care staying in the home she grew up in.

One of her final thoughts, Fortin says, is Callender died feeling defeated.

“She basically said, ‘Ma, nobody was here for me.’ And she said, ‘Every time I tried and tried, I get kicked in the gut.’”

The loss deafening as Fortin prepares to bury her only child.

Her mourning is mixed with fury at the thought of a decision forced upon her family.

She says in the end, it did not help Callender.

It only hindered her.

DCF offered its condolences through a statement.

For this heartbroken mother, it’s not enough.

“Everybody is held accountable that’s DCF, every judge, every doctor and nurse that touched her. I’m not done with this,” Fortin said.

You can hear a hurting mother, but a part of Fortin is at peace, she says.

Fortin is accepting donations to help cover funeral expenses. To see how you can help, click here.

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(1) comment

Osler

Gotta love how people blame everyone but themself.

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