S is for my SURVIVOR

At 3:17 a.m. in the Stanford Hospital Emergency Room lobby a doctor walked up to me and said, "We know it is cancer."

I felt a punch to my gut.

"The ultrasound shows a piece of bone missing in her hip."

Suckerpunch to the head.

"And there is a spot on her lung."

Final TKO blow. My daughter is filled with cancer....in her bones and lungs.

"We are admitting her as soon as a room is available."

I reeled against the wall as he walked away.

A nurse walked up to me and asked if Dr. _____ had talked to me. I answered, "I don't know who talked to me but I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday and I am exhausted. She brought me some saltine crackers and orange juice.

My husband had given me his work cell phone -but how do you call a father and tell him his baby has cancer? I chose to tell him in person.

I followed the gurney with my daughter and an IV pole down the dreadfully long hallway that connects Lucile Packard with Stanford. Quasimodo who pushed the gurney said nothing...his one shoulder leaning way down as he breathed deeply straining against the weight of life. We passed parents sleeping on random couches in the halls and the thought that I could be one of those parents didn't help the nauseous feeling in my gut.

We reached 3 North, the oncology wing. The mechanical door button did not open the doors and Quasi was frustrated as I tried to hold both doors open for the gurney to pass. A young nurse met us and led us into a private room. Looking at my daughter, finally in comfort with the morphine flowing into her veins, I was able to leave her for a few hours.

I drove home and told the Captain that our baby had cancer. I slept for one hour and woke up the other kids. It was registration day at middle school. I left checks and directions for Daughter #2 to take BIG Foot to the orientation. To pay for his yearbook, P.E. clothes, hot lunches and whatever the hell needed to be done because we would be at the hospital...indefinitely.

That morning we signed paper after paper. We watched her first bone marrow pull, as the fellow doctor struggled with the marrow, so thick it would barely draw out. We phoned our work with the news that our daughter had some cancer...not sure....we will let you know...call me a substitute teacher...can you pick up my son from school this week? Can you let AYSO know that I cannot possibly coach my team? Tell my indoor team to find another left forward.

The next days were blurs of a diagnosis, surgeries to implant a Hickman Line, bone marrow draws, induction chemotherapy that caused diabetes, pancreatitis and the loss of 20 pounds. The good news was that the socially inept doctor from E.R. was wrong. The "missing bone" in her hip was just marrow so full of leukemic cells it showed up dense...and the spot on the lung was the beginnings of pneumonia. The leukemia was ALL, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a childhood leukemia with a 70% survival rate at her age group. The cancer had also not made its way into her spinal fluid.

After 2.5 years of daily chemotherapy she was still in remission an she concluded her treatment.

Today, 6 years off treatment, she remains in excellent health.
A SURVIVOR!

and this is why I end every post with....

*LIVESTRONG*LOVESTRONGER*LAUGH
HARDER*KISS A SURVIVOR

We are very fortunate. Along this journey we have met many cancer families...and we have lost many friends along the way. That damned neuroblastoma. Three little boys and Alex from Alex's Lemonade stand crossed out path....all gone now from that *ucked up cancer. There is no "good" cancer...yet we were lucky to have the one with a better survival rate...but that still means nothing to those 12 friends of ours who lost children to the same *ucked up cancer my daughter had. So when the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society asks for a donation....remember these kids...and give a shit $1 donation to help find a cure.

July 2003- Relay for Life speech:

Kimra called me 2-3 months ago and asked if Ali or I would like to speak tonight. My life was chaos at the time so I told her one of us would. So I put off writing this until yesterday. As I sat to write this I had so much to say I did not know where to begin. Should I tell what we have been through in the last 334 days- what it is like to be told in the emergency room at 4 a.m. that your 15 year old daughter has cancer? Should I tell you how people have helped us? How people have hurt us? How unprotective a parent feels- how brave children can fight? …

16 years, 4 months, 7 days and about 8 ½ hours ago, my husband and I drove our baby girl home from Mills Hospital. For those of you who have made that drive, you know it is one of inexplicable joy. Here is this baby you are to protect and care for. Every lane change, every stoplight is taken with caution. You drive less than the speed limit for the first time since you began driving. You drive as defensive as you can. You do everything in your power to be safe and protective. But no matter how protective you are, there are things like cancer that you cannot protect your child from.

326 days ago I again drove my daughter home from the hospital for the 2nd time. For those of you who have experienced this drive, it is also a time of  joy. The saminexplicablee defensiveness, the same protective instinct. Only things are different…you are very aware of cancer and what you can and cannot protect your child from.

Since last August we have experienced the best of times and the worst of times…the best: first and second remissions; the worst: return stays in the hospital for unexplainable side effects and treatments. We have experienced the good the bad and the ugly- The good: friends, neighbors and co-workers who rallied to help our family in every way. The bad: the pain of treatments that will last 2 and ½ years. The ugly: an F given by a p.e. teacher because Ali could not do what the other girls could do.

What this has taught us is to fight. Fight cancer, fight discrimination, fight, fight, fight. We have become tough and calloused. What we have learned is to love. Love each day that Ali is feeling good, to love bald heads, to love the sunshine and the storm, to love the birds and worms in the garden, love the laughter and our time as a family. We have learned to love a day like this and rejoice that there are other people who are fighting successfully - we are all here in this fight together. Cancer has touched all of us here in some way. It has made us all fight, hate, love, rejoice- it has shown us the best of times and the worst of times- it has shown us the good the bad and the ugly. It has made us vulnerable and unprotective…it has made us stronger…it has given us the strength to be here today and fight. And so we shall until there is a cure.