Hold On to Happy

When I was very young, about Emma's age, my grandfather was a Lutheran minister who ran our family mortuary. It may sound morbid to some but I spent many hours playing in the halls of the funeral home, watching my grandfather hold services and playing in the office with my grandmother. I remember clearly walking down the dark wooden hallway hearing the echo of my grandfather's tenor voice and the softness of his hands on the piano, "O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made; I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art." I close my eyes and still hear his voice, see him sitting at the piano singing to an empty chapel.

I never felt scared being around death as a child, in fact, I remember feeling comforted knowing these people were loved on earth and were now home with God. A mortuary is not depressing but an pediatric oncology department...that is depressing. It occurred to me in church this morning as we sang the old hymn How Great Thou Art and my grandfather's memory filled my head with sweetness that Emma
will remember these days. I am not sure if that is good or bad. At least when she is an adult she will have a great perspective not many share that there should be no sweat in the small things. That we should live each day as if it was our last, to take joy in what we can as it happens. I hope she remembers days like today, playing at the park with her family. I hope she remembers the kind nurses who giver her pink ponies for being brave, the church friends who bring us meals, dear friends who come to play, singing with Grandma, Auntie who arrives for a weekend visit just because she loves us, and mommy stopping to treat us to chocolate milk because it just felt right. I hope she forgets all the bad and only remembers the good.

This post is for you dear Emma, remember the good things we do together. Remember the fun times. It wasn't all dark, we had good days. Hold on to the happy times.

And sometimes we smash whip cream pies in our face for childhood cancer awareness! Our Whip Challenge

Off House Arrest

When people see me out in public and say, "You have your hand's full" my knee jerk reaction is to reply back, "You don't even know the half of it!". Funny how people perceive others. "But she doesn't look sick". The thing is, appearances are deceiving, are they not? Emma does look sick if you know her well. The color of her skin has changed and she has dark circles under her eyes. If you see her next to her healthy twin sister you can tell she is sick. Appearances are deceiving. Lucky for us Emma still has her hair, please God let her keep her hair.

Emma's numbers are back up this week so we are off house arrest! Her thrush is clearing up thanks to

week 5

our doTERRA OnGuard oils. You should have seen the look on the Oncologists face when I told him essential oils, not Nystatin was responsible for her healing. It was classic! We just put a couple drops on her feet and a beadlet in her mouth twice a day and a week later it is almost gone!

Emma and baby sister Cora waiting for doc

We have the website up and running for Emma's info, on it you will find her Cancer Can Be Project ordering, the form to fill out to receive a free calender if you have a Childhood Cancer Warrior and sneak peek pictures of our project. Please pass the link along to anyone you know with a Warrior. It also has the link for becoming a sponsor, we are having all donations go directly to the printer and shipping company. I ordered cards today with ordering information on them, if you would like some to pass along or place in your business just contact me and I will get a bunch over to you! Here is the link, www.throughemmaseye.weebly.com.

So This Is What They Were Talking About...

It is not fair. I believe now that watching your child suffer might just be the worst thing in the entire world. Emma has now had two ER visits. Both for high fever and dehydration with other odd symptoms like having the runs and what appeared to be thrush. This visit ended the same as last time, with a doc shrugging his shoulders after several hours in the ER, "We just don't know but we know it is nothing too serious". Thanks. Not that they could do more, maybe it is a virus or a reaction to the chemo but the greater thanks, the thanks for nothing. Cancer ate Emma's life but then it became hungry for mine too. There is no way I could ever think about working again until Emma is much much better. Appointments, monitoring, last minute trips to the ER, phone consultations with oncology, paperwork (so much paperwork), dealing with bills...that is my life now. No time for anything else. Any extra time I find goes to the home, food prep, laundry, homeschooling, breaking up sibling arguments, bathing, cleaning and shopping for necessities. That is it. I know I am complaining, as I read this I am considering deleting it all and writing something less whiny. But it needs to be said and the world needs to know. It is not just the kid who suffers greatly, and she does suffer. The family suffers so much too. I can see it in pictures. I am not just tired anymore. It is an extreme fatigue that no nap or cup of coffee can ever touch. And it will not get better any time soon. So here we sit on house arrest from a compromised immune system. Where fun distractions disappear and I am left with my demons; cancer, bills, and my weakening emotional state. It is times like this I am glad I have a faith base because in this kind of darkness the only light powerful enough to shine is God's. There has to be a better way. Please, someone come up with a cure for my baby. The chemo is slowly killing us all.

Many of you have asked how Emma is doing, thank you for your kind words and inquiries. She is

okay. Any day we can be home and not in a hospital is a small victory. She is, however, acting like a kid on chemo. Tired, whiny, lethargic and sensitive to just about everything. Eating and drinking have become a battle. We have a daily battle keeping her hydrated. I have been searching for a drink that tastes good to her but she will only take a couple sips of anything I offer and ditch it. I have had to resort to bribery to get her to drink a glass of water. I did find that she will very rarely turn down yogurt so at least we have one food that is a win on a hard day.

We are making strides with the Cancer Can Be Project. Emma has a website now, www.throughemmaseye.weebly.com, for ordering a calender, nominating a cancer kid to receive a free one and becoming a sponsor. I am narrowing down the printer options and looking into shipping this week. I should have preordering up soon. If anyone is interested in offsetting the costs of giving the calenders for free to cancer warriors I am having you all pay our printer and shipping dept directly. This is not a fundraiser for Emma, it is a Pay It Forward mission. The only benefits we receive are the distraction of picture taking and the satisfaction we brought smiles to other kids in our situation.

A huge thank you to Persnickety Clothing Company for giving Emma a Princess Millie dress to wear and Livie & Luca shoes for sending Emma so many wonderful shoes to wear for our project. We are proud to support these amazing companies! They have big hearts and have shown us much love.

Nominate Your Cancer Warrior!

We have a form to complete to nominate your Childhood Cancer Warrior to receive a free Cancer Can Be Calender for the holidays. I need a general number for the printer so please submit your child as soon as you can. Form Please share this with anyone you know that may find some hope and inspiration from our little project. I will have a place to purchase the calenders soon, if anyone has any recommendations for hosting sites that I can link easily to the blog please contact me.

On a personal note Emma finished her first month of chemo. One month down and eleven more to

go. She was not feeling too well this week and we found one of the reasons today. She has thrush. It is not related to the chemo but it is a result of a compromised immune system.

Yesterday we were interviewed by Erin at the Modesto Bee for a story on Emma. It is our hope that the story helps to promote the Cancer Can Be Project and creates more awareness for Childhood Cancer. I know I have said it before but I will say it again and again until it changes, 3.8% is not a high enough of a percentage in the budget for all pediatric cancer research. It is unacceptable. Our kids are worth more then this teeny tiny budget. They deserve treatments that are less toxic. They deserve a childhood. Please please do not look away. I know they are sad, believe me, I know. Bald children, the sick, the dying babies. I know that you do not want to look but what if it was YOUR child? What if your baby was diagnosed with cancer? Would you find 3.8% acceptable? Would you want to pump her full of chemo and pray she sees adulthood? Please do not look away, fight for us so we can save others. Join us. I have been asked recently who to donate to if you felt so lead to help with Childhood Cancer research. I have done some research and I can safely say I promote St. Baldrick's Foundation.

Go GOLD!

This photo works on Facebook and Twitter as cover photos, the text will wrap.

It doesn't see color, race or background. It could care less if you are an innocent child or come from a poor family. It is in every city in every state in our whole country. Childhood Cancer is a problem. Every 4 minutes another parent has to hear the heart stopping phrase, "Your child has cancer". It is not fair. These kids deserve a childhood. They deserve research and funding. It is heartbreaking but a very small percentage of cancer research funding goes to pediatrics. To quote my friend Sandy who has her own Childhood Cancer Warrior, "Only 4% of NCI's tax-payer funded annual budget accounts for ALL of the childhood cancers. Pharmaceutical companies account for 60% of cancer drug development. Of that money zero dollars will be devoted towards developing medications for pediatric cancer. Zero. Why? Because there is no profit in pediatric cancer. THERE IS NO PROFIT IN PEDIATRIC CANCER. Now repeat that to yourself a few times and let the rage wash over you." I could not say it better myself. 

It is time for change. It is time to care about our children. It is time to give a childhood to these amazing warriors. It is time to stop pumping our kids full of poison because it is their only hope of survival to adulthood. Change, together we can create change. This month is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Will you stand with us? Will you fight at our side? Will you go GOLD for Emma this month on social media to raise awareness? 

This month we go GOLD for Emma, for Brooklyn, for Jaxson, for Lilly for all our friends who fight the same horrible battle we do. This is for us and this is for you. We are in this together. 

#throughemmaseye

Official Initiation

The life of a chemo kid is complex. In my purse you will find an array of odd things that most people

do not carry; topical numbing cream, an orbital temperature thermometer, tegaderm tape, gummy bear bribes, and a chemo port info card. That is just the beginning and as we discovered yesterday, weekly chemo visits are not always the end to your hospital stay for the week.

Yesterday Emma was quiet, easy going and peaceful. That sounds nice to a normal parent but to me it was a huge red flag that she did not feel well. I took her temperature and it read 101.4, oh no...here we go! For people who are new to the chemo world any fever of over 101 is considered an emergency and earns you a ticket to the nearest ER. The reason is her chemo port creates a central line, if an infection occurs in a central line then it can result in death in a very short time span. The

first sign is usually fever. She was not feeling well and spiked a fever so off we went. It was our first and most likely not our last unexpected trip.

We dropped Gracie off at a dear friend's house and prepared for a day of waiting and tests. Thankfully her tests came back no sepsis which is the deadly infection I mentioned. The only negative is we have no idea what caused her fever. We were sent home with one shot of antibiotics to prevent an infection from the ER and told to monitor her and bring her back if she spikes a fever again.

 Sadly this is the life of a chemo kid and one we hope to leave behind very soon. 

Thank you  to all our prayer warriors on our Facebook page leaving us encouraging messages yesterday and a huge thank you to Sandy, my chemo mom buddy, who helped talk me through my first crisis. We love you!

In news that is much more fun, our Trunk Keeper for our Matilda Jane clothes is hosting a party online for Emma and donating her commission to Emma! She is such a sweetheart! I know you all love Emma's clothes, she does too. This girl is quite the little fashionista. If you would like to buy some clothes for your little girl or for yourself, I wear a lot of their mama line which is very flattering, please do so this Monday and Tuesday through Leslie so little Emma get's the credit. Here is a link to the party, Emma's Matilda Jane Party or you can contact me through our Facebook page and I will get everything to Leslie.

A New Twist

Childhood is magical, little girls especially have this pure view on the world. It sparkles. It is full of fireflies and fairies, princesses who ride off into the sunset, castles, gnomes, and flowers as tall as a tree. To see the world through the eyes of a child is to see a story book. So is it not fitting that our calender project look childlike? The face of Cancer Can Be has morphed into a fairy tale. Emma will take our little cancer warriors on a journey all year to far away lands and bring some magic back into their world. It's about being a child and loving life for what it can be and what we hope it to be again soon.

For those who went before us, 

To those who fight at our side,

 For those who won the battle, 

To those who come along for the ride; 

We dedicate this project to you and hope it inspires you too.

Emma is wearing Persnickety's Princess Millie dress which donates money to childhood cancer families.

The Cancer Can Be Project...coming soon 

Preordering begins on September 1st to kick off Childhood Awareness Month. For every calender you buy a childhood cancer warrior will receive one free for the holidays. If you have a cancer warrior in mind please contact us on our Facebook page to get on the list. I am still working out pricing and if you would like to be a sponsor we still have a need!