Am I really going to blog?: September 2013

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Light the Night

For the first time ever, we are participating in the central Ohio LLS Light the Night walk for leukemia awareness. Please consider joining us on October 12th!

http://pages.lightthenight.org/coh/CntlOhio13/calebscrusaders

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Updates

1. Run/jog/walk 1000 miles. Current status: 687.31/1000.

Still behind, but optimistic!

2. Read 100 books. Current Status: 50/100

Since the last update I have read: Honey, Do You Need a Ride? Confessions of a Fat Runner by Jennifer Graham; Heaven's Child, a mother's journey from heartbreak to healing, second edition; Surviving Schizophrenia: A Memoir by Louise Gillett;Rain on Your Wedding Day by Curtis Edmonds; Don't Call Me Mother: A Daughter's Journey from Abandonment to Forgiveness; Summer Solstice by G. M. Frazier; FAITH A Secret Life by Chub Yublinsky; What it's Like to be Married to Me? And Other Dangerous Questions by Linda Dillow: My Butterfly by Laura Miller; Bite Me by Mike Faricy; If the Shoe Fits by Sandra Bricker; The Book of Maybe by Allison Carmen; Old Before My Time by Hayley and Kerry Okines; Bittersweet by Noelle Adams; Cracks in the Sidewalk by Bette Lee Crosby; Intrusive Memory by Leonardo Anthony Noto.

I am afraid that I am way too far behind to make this one. Going to keep trying though.

3. Lose 25 pounds. No comment.

4. Get more organized. No comment

5. Make one new recipe per week. Current status: 27/52

Until next time,
Lori

I HOPE....

I hope you never have to hear the words, 'Your child has cancer.'

I hope you never have to hear, 'The prognosis is not good.'

I hope you never have to prepare to undergo radiation or chemotherapy, have a port surgically inserted into their chest, be connected to IV poles. Look at you with fear in their eyes and say, 'Don't worry Mommy, everything will be okay.'

I hope you never have to hold your child as they vomit green bile.

I hope you never have to feed them ice chips for lunch.

I hope you never have to watch the 'cure' you pray for slowly take away their identity, as they lose their hair, become skeletal, swell up from steroids, develop severe acne, become barely or unable to walk or move, and look at you with hope in their eyes and say,'It's going to be okay, Mommy.'

I hope that you never have to stay in the hospital for weeks, months, or years at a time, where there is no privacy, sleeping on a slab, with your face to the wall, where you cry in muffled silence.

I hope you never have to see a mother, alone, huddled, in a dark hospital corridor...crying quietly, after just being told, 'There is nothing more we can do.'

I hope you never have to watch a family wander aimlessly, minutes after their child's body has been removed.

I hope you never have to use every bit of energy you have left, with all of this going on around you to remain positive, and the feelings of guilt, sorrow, hope and fear, overwhelm you.

I hope you never have to see a child's head bolted to the table as they receive radiation.

I hope you never have to take your child home (grateful but so afraid) in a wheelchair because the chemo and radiation has damaged their muscles, 35 pounds lighter, pale, bald, and scarred. And they look at you with faith in their eyes and say, 'It's going to be okay Mommy.'

I hope you never have to face the few friends that have stuck beside you and hear them say, 'Thank God that is over with,'...because you know it never will be. Your life becomes a whirl of doctors, blood tests and MRI's and you try to get your life back to 'normal'. While living in mind-numbing fear that any one of those tests could result in hearing the dreaded words...'The cancer has returned' or 'The tumor is growing.' And your friends become even fewer.

I hope you never have to experience any of these things... Because...only then...Will you understand...

(author unknown)