Happy Twenty Ten to all of you! I am posting here, and everywhere else I can think of, to ask for help. No worries …. Julia is fine. As a matter of fact tomorrow is a  monthly clinic appointment and we are optimistic that everything shall continue to progress normally. “No more Cancer in 2010″ is our mantra!
What I am looking for is a business minded person who can help us get Julia’s Rainbow up and running. I have come to the realization that though I have the enthusiasm and drive, I do not have the knowledge needed to get non-profit status and move on to the big plan I have in my brain … stop laughing! It is so important to me that there be an organization out there to offer families the hope that not only will their child and family get through the battle with cancer but that there are thousands of people out there who want to help them live their lives and  maintain what was normal to them before they got the diagnosis.
“Normal” is different for every family and they most certainly will never see the same exact normal again, but they should NEVER have to give up their home that they have known, the status of life they have worked so hard for and the security of their lively-hood so that they can be free to fight for their child’s life!
Families also need to hear stories of families that have made it through the darkness and come out the other end still fighting, but intact! Even in our very darkest times, knowing that our daughter’s sheer existence was out of our hands, we hung tightly to stories of kids who  were growing and thriving and beating the beast. I have said it before and I mean it to my soul, this cannot have been for nothing! The children that I have introduced to you all and thousands I have not had the chance to, have not battled and fought for us to forget them. Some are now looking over their families and (I truly believe) are with them every day, but not on this earth. Some are growing and carrying with them the scars of their battles. Some scars are visible to the eye, some are not, but no one leaves this war zone unscathed.
Please file this in your memory banks and if you are aware of anyone who has the knowledge and where-with-all to make this happen, please let me know!
For those so inclined to, please pray for:
1) Julia’s continued good health
2) Ability to get Nonprofit status for Julia’s Rainbow
3) Our ability to make this what I want it to be for so many families who are supporting children with chronic illness

Thank you as always for your love and support and for helping us make 2010 the year we make changes and strides in how we care for our kids.
Peace,
Kathy

Image by ANVAR - SO BUSY RUSSIANTEXAN © via Flickr

I cannot believe I have gone through the holiday season without blogging here once. I apologize if I have left my friends out of the loop, but I promise it is all good. Just crazy busy and barely finding time to breathe, never mind write!

Today is just a quick post to say “thank you” and “I love you” to all of you that have always held me up, even when I was faltering and maybe didn’t deserve as much love as you sent my way. It has been a glorious First Holiday Season Without Cancer for my family and I promise I will tell you all about it soon. For now, I am off to bed for an early wakeup and a  weekend of work!

So may you and your family have a blessed and happy new year and may you feel all the love you put out there come right back at ya!
Dang! Can you believe Y2K was 10 years ago?! HAPPY 2010!!!!

Peace,

K

Tomorrow is the big day … sort of.  Snowball is scheduled to go to his new  home. We told the kids and they did better than we expected. They got welled up and a bit weepy at the dinner table and then, surprisingly, started giggling over silliness and sadness. They are, unfortunately, accustomed to loss and grief and have an interesting way of dealing with it. I am, in a twisted way, proud of how my kids are learning these coping skills. I know this will serve them well, but truly wish it didn’t have to be something we had to put on them so early in life.

I also wish they weren’t immediately discussing the puppy they think they are getting for Christmas this year.  Not going to happen. More grief and sadness headed their way.

As we are all immersed in our everyday craziness and the holiday rush, I need to ask you all to keep a fellow Cancer Mom (and a really fun blogger)  in your prayers. I told you about Anissa Mayhew a few weeks ago. She suffered a severe stroke and is still in the hospital struggling for  her life. If you click here , you will find information on how to help her young family at this especially difficult time of year. Consider how quickly life can change and how quickly it can change for you. Then consider what your family would do if you were in her situation. Enough guilt! Just hoping some of you feel the love and are moved to help these people who have already been through a version of hell and are now required to march through an even more hellish version!

We are quickly getting ready for the holidays here. School is coming to a close on Friday, our cruise plans are coming together, shopping will somehow get done (it magically does each year) and the kids will come down off the cieling anytime now! I am consistently amazed year after  year at how fast each year piles onto the next!

So have a peaceful and productive week and say a quick prayer that I don’t end up with 3 sobbing kids under a Christmas tree searching for their new puppy that isn’t there!

Peace,

K

How is this for a great big humbug?! We have found a new home for our peeing- and -pooping- on -everything -that -doesn’t- move -and -some -things -that- do- for -the- past -4 -years dog and now have to do the final farewell as he heads to a new home with another small dog where he will get pampered in the way he was bred to be pampered. Great thing for us. Greater thing for Snowball. Not so good for my kiddies. They are aware we were looking for a home for him and would NEVER send him to the pound, but I know they don’t grasp the reality of the full picture.

I swore I would never be this kind of pet owner or parent. As a kid myself, my mother was habitual in her practice of getting us a pet and, before the year was up, getting rid of it in whatever way she deemed necessary. There were dogs left with other families,cats that just never came home,  dogs taken to the pound and dogs that went to “live on a farm in the country”. Each time was a heart wrenching experience for us kids and I SWORE I would never do this to an animal or my children.

So here I am in a position to explain to my children that Snowball, the peeing Bichon Frise, is off to a better home and I am reliving all the dogs of my past. As a grown up I have been a responsible pet owner and had our last two dogs for 13 and 10 years (so far) each. This is a different situation and I know he would be better off in a home where someone will take the one on  one time with him and not treat him like an outside dog because of his inability to be house trained or maybe our inability to do it correctly. Now that I have explained and rationalized this to myself and to you, how do I tell  my kids?! I hate the long goodbyes, but know they need to be given that opportunity. I am just a big fat chicken and don’t want to do it! I keep thinking this will become one of my children’s Holiday memories and they will remember this yearly.  I would rather they remember J’s Make a Wish Cruise rather than the good bye to Snowball event this will surely become!

The clincher?! My husband has promised them a new dog after the holidays. Oh Lord help me!

Peace,

K

So as you “regular readers” know, I have decided to become a physically better person. I am following a program that will supposedly take me from a couch potato to an athlete running a 5k in 9 weeks! Yesterday I “ran” my first day. I felt good about myself, though admittedly I hated every second of it. My theory is if I don’t forget how horrible it felt I will never let myself get in that shape again. Leah was even more encouraging when she told me how she went from 200 pounds to 145 since February and now runs 3 miles a day! So here I am ~ inspired!

Then I woke up this morning.

I am sad, yet sickly proud, to say I have my first athletic injury as an adult! Some nastiness happened with my (I assume) Achilles tendon and it hurts like hell! Great. The day is not off to a great start and I have Miles to go before I sleep …

Pop some ibuprofen, drink my morning coffee, catch a shower and some emails and plan to head out to my hair appointment. Imagine?! A whole hour just about ME?! Yea, not so much. Phone rings. It’s J’s school. Her ears are bleeding ~ can I come up and decide what to do? Okay that’s not exactly the way the call went, but you get the idea. I FLY up to the school expecting hemoragging and instead find my daughter lounging on her back with her legs crossed, reading. No blood just drainage. New cotton balls, some clean up and back to class she went … much to her displeasure. Back to my day… head to ATM and realize my card is gone. Great. Run home, look in each coat pocket, pants in laundry… the usual drill when I lose the damn thing (yes, it’s happened before … several times) and can’t find it anywhere! Run to the bank, stop the card, order a replacement Blah blah blah… finally get to my hair appointment. Whew. I enjoyed some time of relaxation and pleasure as hot wax is poured on my eyebrows and ripped off. Heaven.

I head home to start the wrapping and sorting but the phone rings again. Julia is back at the nurse’s office complaining of her ears. I go back up and check her and her brothers both out even though it is 45 minutes early. We need to head to Charlotte for the Radiothon for the Children’s Miracle Network. Greg proceeds to tell me for the entire ride that he is carsick and we need to find some doctors when we get to the hospital. Do I think there will be any Doctors or Nurses around? Hello! I guess I don’t count as a nurse in his mind.

So we arrive at the hospital, which is closed to kids except for the Radiothon guests, due to the Swine “epidemic” and panic that ensued and Greg announces in his VERY loud voice, “Mom, I think I have H1N1 virus!” I wanted to throw a rug over him, throw him over my shoulder and run! Instead I rummaged through my bag and found my ibuprofen … again. This day has been endless.

By the time we get home I am wiped and the migraine is over taking my head and body. I know the only thing that will help me now, and my husband will have to help me out with it so I can unwind and destress. Actually Tom plays a very critical part… just not the part he would like . He pours my glass of wine, takes the kids upstairs and lets me choose between Christmas Story and Elf. Even better than hot wax poured on my face and ripped off.

Not a one of you asked, but I thought you would like to know how a normal day is around here these days! I am happy none of these things involved Julia getting treatment and we only went to the hospital to express our gratitude! I will take a headache from Every Day Kid and Holiday Stress over the kind we  have  had the past 5 Christmases!

Peace,

K