It's already August...school starts back, routines and sports schedules get back on track and football is right around the corner. Go Dawgs! This is going to be our year!!!!😂🏈
It also means cancer parents start to prepare for September. The dreaded, exhausting month of gold ribbon awareness 💕🎗💛🎗. And if you are a family member of Mary Elizabeth's you get the double whammy of reflecting on the 2 year anniversary of her death (Sept. 2). If you are lucky you are able to focus more positively on her 12 amazing years on this earth. But unfortunately her horrid 17 month battle with AML, her untimely death and the 2 long, lonely, sad years missing her will also play a big role in these memories for me. These memories leave battle scars that can never ever fully heal. My broken heart can be crudely patched but never perfectly mended. Losing a child changes you in ways that you can't exactly explain to regular people who haven't experienced the same loss. You want to be angry but you are not exactly sure who or what to be mad at anymore. You want help to heal but you don't know where to look to find repair. You fight for change and awareness but eventually you get so frustrated and exhausted with the battle because you see almost no progress being made. No one seems to care. People forget. The world keeps turning and everyone's lives go on...except for yours. People don't seem to want to know the truth. The truth IS painful. The truth is I freakin' hate gold glitter, gold bows, lemonade stands, cancer walks, cancer t-shirts, cute cancer videos, all of it-seriously. It's not cute or fun to me. It's depressing. The cancer stories make me cry and honestly it all sucks. I never knew we would be one of those sad cancer stories. I didn't want to believe childhood cancer happened to regular people like us. Sadly, every person who has a child with cancer thinks these same exact thoughts...."Why me? Why my child?" Eventually you think, "Why not me?" It can happen to anyone and we are proof. Why can't someone in congress, the President, someone in government, anyone with some power feel my same desperation and care~just a little???That's what we really need. We need someone to give a sh*t about our kids and give them a voice. We need a voice that people will listen to. Apparently no one listens to children. We may smile at that cute kid, pat them on the little bald head and say, "Awe, you are so sweet." Maybe throw a dollar in the jar and walk away. It's easy to walk away and forget when childhood cancer doesn't affect you...but I promise it very well might enter your home one day. It sneaks in when you least expect it and steals away all your hopes and dreams. It is a real, true and terrifying monster. We need health care that will cover these children's long term, lifelong health needs (if they are lucky enough to survive), drugs to fight their disease and research to find cures. Any available money seems to go to more meaningless projects or to further fatten the same old pockets. My friends are losing the health coverage their children desperately need, no new drugs are being developed and no new cures are being found for these innocent children. Children fighting to beat relentless cancers and live every day just to have a normal boring life. Almost 300 children around the world die everyday from cancer. 300. My child is dead. She actually never had a fighting chance and I am still making 100's of freakin' gold bows. Why? Because I don't know what else to do. Am I angry? Yes!!!! Am I frustrated? Yes!!!!What do I want people to know???? I want them to know where their hard earned $ is going. I want them to ask ?????'s. I want them to write, email and badger their local law makers and politicians for change. If you give $ to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) know it goes to mainly help adults with cancer. If you give $ to Relay for Life it benefits adults. If you give to the American Cancer Society (ACS) it helps adults. Only pennies on the dollar are given to benefit children. These are hard, true, sad facts. That is all well and good if that is where you want your money to go. Just know childhood cancer is different from adult cancer. It is genetically different. The causes are different. The cures and drugs for childhood cancer need to be different. If you cure cancer in an adult it will most likely not benefit cures for children. I personally believe if you first find cures in children it can benefit finding cures in adults. Children are our future and so much can be learned from watching them develop and grow. If you want to be a part of helping promote cures and research for children please give to St. Jude, give to CHOA, give to CURE, give to our personal fund: United for a CURE. We give 100% of the $ we raise to research for childhood AML. AML is one of the most underfunded of all childhood cancers. This is the cancer that took Mary, Lake and Melissa. This cancer is not rare but some like to call rare. This same cancer took 3 innocent lives that mattered and took many more that mattered just as much to the people who also loved them. There are many other funds that give to children, just do your research and ask questions. Don't be afraid. Every penny counts. Tell Mary's story to anyone who will listen. She mattered, all the children matter. Help us share knowledge and sell a million gold bows and collect a million coins if that is what it takes to find cures. That's all we've got for now and it has to be enough. The link to order gold bows is on this page. Also I have posted the link for "Coins 4 CURE" another great fundraiser any business or school can easily do. I can't thank those who continue to follow our story and who have stuck by our family enough. I appreciate all that you do and keep doing to keep Mary's legacy alive. It keeps me strong and helps me to keep fighting. Thank you.
