Sweet 17!!

Kelly turned 17!

She got to go cheer on her teammates during their cross-country meet, and so wore her tutu.

 So excited!

Andy made her great layer cake.  :)

Letter to a friend

Dear Friend of a Friend,

This weekend, you received news that you never would have imagined hearing.  Your son has cancer.  My heart aches for you, your son, your family, your community, and your friends to come.  You see, I've been down that road, and am traveling still.  Yes, we are out of the woods for now, but as you will soon learn, there is no guarantee or chance to feel safe from those words again.

So many emotions race through my mind when I hear of friends of friends in your situation.  Even when it's a child in the community that we have no connection to, I feel an unbearable urge to get to know that family, share my knowledge of the life they're being thrust into, and follow that child's/family's journey.

Welcome to the club:

• where you'll know exactly which cancer research fundraisers will have your support (not the ones that only donate pennies out of each dollar fundraised toward childhood cancer research)
• where you'll stop caring about womens' breasts, preferring instead a gold ribbon
• where the several cases of childhood cancer that you've heard about in the past few years in your community must be an outbreak beforehand, but after thinking about it, not an outbreak, just a NORMAL reality
• where you will have instant family worldwide, but especially the ones you meet on the floor (cancer unit), in clinic, or at the Ronald McDonald House
• where you are thrilled that your other child's scary symptoms are JUST epilepsy because that can be controlled by medicine (unlike some brain tumors)
• where your cancer patient's previous open-heart surgery feels like it was NOTHING because it threaten their life in nearly the same way--for so long, and to such extremes
• when you write letters to your friend's friend because you heard that their son/daughter was diagnosed with one of the most life-changing diagnoses possible
• where every other fresh childhood cancer diagnosis hits just as hard and makes you physically ill because you KNOW just how hard of a journey that entire family will be embarking on
• where you throw away all sense of pride and have to accept help
• where "getting to visit home" for a weekend is a HUGE joy
• where you learn to really appreciate friends who don't ask, they just see a need and take care of it (dinner, gas cards, grocery cards, fast food cards, entertainment for you and for your patient, babysitting, visits to see how you are, cards or letters, donations to help out)
• where you truly come to appreciate just how many people and organizations are out there to help people just like you and your son, to make life just a tiny bit more bearable
• where you won't be able to focus on only one charity again (research, Ronald McDonald House, Make-A-Wish, patient inability to pay fund)
• where you truly will become a MOMCOLOGIST, which is to say that you will know as much or MORE about your child's cancer than your oncologist, pediatrician, nurses, etc.
• where, within a short time, you will have enough training on patient care, you'll feel you could be a nurse.  And if you're already a nurse, you'll feel qualified to work on a cancer unit.
• where you'll end up with PTSD from the diagnosis and all the stress that accompanies it
• where your thoughts will end up just as scattered as the topics listed here

There are some things that are silver linings to this ugly reality:

• your new, instant family that isn't related by blood
• empathy you will develop for others
• a new appreciation for life and all it has to offer
• a new appreciation for your patient
• the chance to see the wonderfulness and kindness of others
• more knowledge (not the kind you EVER wanted, but it may be useful in other situations someday)
• a new appreciation for having your family all TOGETHER

This isn't a long list of what to be thankful for.  There are many others, but it is so hard to find them when overwhelmed with cancer.  Just make sure to find one thing to be thankful for each day, and your journey will be a tiny bit more pleasant.

I am so sorry to welcome you to this exclusive club.  But, know that you are welcomed with open arms, ready to help you, pray for/with you, and we will all be there for you.

Sincerely, 

Sarah

p.s. Make sure you don't forget to do special things with your non-cancer children!  They need support and love too!

First Day of School (My baby has overcome so much to get here!)

Anthony is 5 now, and because he is DONE with chemotherapy and the immune-suppressing related medications, he is able to go to school!

Although kindergarten age, Anthony gets to go to preschool this year, so he can learn about classroom life, learn some basics, and be around other children who are at his current level.

This means we're in a whole new game with Anthony now.

First we had to keep him alive.

Now we need to make sure he thrives.

It's also more complicated now.

Every cancer family worries about relapse in the future.

Anthony's chances of that are extremely small, but it's always in the back of my mind.

Now that he's in school, he'd be missing out on even more in life if he ever needed to be back at the hospital.

We'll just enjoy this.

It's also fitting that Anthony is getting a new start in life with school on his "gotcha day."

We "got" Anthony on September 11, five years ago!

So Anthony is the poster child for foster care awareness, adoption awareness, Down syndrome awareness, congenital heart defect awareness, and childhood cancer awareness.

What we're aware of, is Anthony's perfect spirit and how happy he makes EVERYONE who meets him.

 Looking at his shadow

 The sun is so bright!  But, the bacon's yummy!

 Enough with smiling, gotta get this thing off!

 Ok, now it's off.  Time to go do stuff before the bus comes.

 He was stacking these.

 And of course had to do a couple puzzles.

Anthony is really good at doing puzzles.  :)

 On the bus!

The afternoon bus drivers did not have the same bus, with seat belts or car seats.

They understood why I was so nervous about him escaping...

Childhood Cancer Awareness Swag

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

GOLD ribbon, people!

A great blog post about how you can help is HERE.

For our overwhelmed-lately family, our main action to support childhood cancer victims was to donate a bunch of change to the Ronald McDonald House Charities box at our local McDonalds.

A huge number of families dealing with childhood cancer must stay at this home away from home for long periods of time during treatment.

We stayed at ours for 14 months.

We love RMH!

Will you donate some change or more next time you're in the drive up?

Back to School 2013

Play

Anthony had fun with dinosaurs for the first time.

 And wore someone else's shoes over his.

He was quite proud of that one.

 They discovered eating with a stool as a tray.

 He was playing in the girls' room and was being quiet.

Josh went to get him and he had marker all over his face.

Serving our neighbors

There was a huge wild fire last summer in the hills above Wenatchee.

This summer, it has been humid and there have been some thunderstorms in the Wenatchee Valley.

When the storms have dumped rain, they REALLY dumped rain, and the emergency broadcasting service was actually used on all the radio stations to warn of the danger of flash flooding.

We have some friends who live in another ward (congregation) who were affected by a big flash flood, and the mudslide that ensued.

Our stake (group of congregations) asked members to come help with cleaning up debris last week.

I thought there would be a bunch of people there and we'd be done in less than an hour.

I think 130 people showed up, and were there for more than 3 hours, and it was nowhere near being cleaned up!

We made huge piles of sticks, shoveled some driveways, piled retaining wall bricks that had been washed down the street, and helped other neighbors there too.

It was a lot of work, but fun to do with friends.