#showyourgold

Emma and I are doing better, both of us are still struggling with nightmares, panic attacks, etc. but now that it has a name it is easier to fight. This week we have been stuck in our tiny home with no car, the baby bus has kicked the bucket yet again. Cabin fever anyone? I have been doing extra involved homeschool lessons to keep us all sane.

We got her No More Chemo pictures back yesterday from the photographer. They are so amazing I started to cry! This is the same photographer that took Emma's before chemo pictures. I am astounded by how much she has grown this year and how healthy she looks being just one month out of chemo treatments. When you are in the fight you do not realize truly how bad it looks, once you can step back it is pretty shocking.

Does childhood cancer make you uncomfortable? It should. Before Emma was diagnosed I used to intentionally leave the movie theater during St. Jude's commercials ...it was too horrible to imagine. Then I was forced to live it. Be stronger than me, take a stand NOW. Look at these children and do something. Spread awareness and demand more funding. These kids deserve a childhood.

We might be done with chemo for now but our war is far from won. Emma will need heavy monitoring every three months by a team of 5 specialists until puberty. She will be on and off medication during that time and most likely there will be more brain surgeries. Although her prognosis has improved it will be hard to maintain a sense of normalcy during these years.

As most of you know Gracie also has tumors. Unlike Emma she has NF spots in both of her eyes. She will also need active monitoring to make sure those spots do not steal her eyesight like they did to Emma.

Between the two girls we will spend a lot of time at Stanford for testing, monitoring, surgeries, and medicine. Thankfully we have assembled an All Star team over there and I can rest easy knowing the girls are receiving cutting edge care. I just wish there were more options.

Fight for a cure. Right now it is Emma fighting, it is our war, but cancer does not care who you are. Let's stop it before it steals more childhoods. Go gold on your social media, if you have any contacts with media outlets get them involved, share as much as you can. These kids only get 4% of cancer funding. 4% is not enough. We stand behind St. Baldwicks as a reliable source for research funding. If you feel led to get involved please visit their possibilities for donations and fundraising. For those of you who are also ProLife you can rest easy knowing that their research funding does not use human stem cells.