The Collective Beating Heart of Humanity

Helping Hearts,

I am not a "everything happens for a reason" person...I can be better described as "shit happens" and "keep calm and trust God". In this situation I felt no different. It did not feel like there was some epic, cosmic reason that our car was stolen and along with it nearly all of our nice possessions. It felt more like a "shit happens" type of situation. Who knows why it happened to us but it happened.

Matilda Jane sent us a box of pretty!

I've changed my mind.

In this situation I think God spun it around so it came back to bless us. These last three weeks have been extremely stressful. I have sobbed like a small child, yelled, lost my temper, and swallowed my pride. It was hard, but it was also healing. Many things happened in these three weeks that made me realize that there is a collective beating heart of humanity. That for the most part the world is good, car thieves are in the minority. Although I will never understand what possessed a man  to steal an aqua blue baby bus with over 100k miles on it, a car that had tons of childhood cancer awareness and info in it so clearly it was needed, a car that was obviously used heavily and well maintained...why that car? Why not one of the nicer cars on our street? I will never know why but I do know this,

Tula sent a "Beacon" carrier

- I had to surrender to the unknown. There many unknowns in this car situation. We were not sure we could buy another car, even with the insurance pay off. We knew we could never afford to replace all the items in the car, many of which were needed for hospital trips. All I knew for sure is I had to surrender.

- I had to accept help. Borrowed seats, offers to replace stolen items, purchasing a car for a price we could afford, allowing news crews to move our tight schedule around so we could tell our story and receive help. I am great at helping, not so good at accepting help. Nothing like a swift kick in the rear end to push you into having no choice but to accept help!

- I had to release the idea that I could somehow pay back everyone who helped. If I get sick and you bring me a meal then you get sick I will bring you a meal. I try to keep track of people who extend themselves for us and make sure to be there for them when their lives crumble. It is part of being a good friend, it is polite, but also it makes me uncomfortable to always accept help but not give back. This situation taught me that sometimes you cannot fully payback people who go out of their way to

Walmart replaced some stolen items

help you. The people who helped us with the car, the friends who drove that car up from LA for us on their day off, the companies who replaced their item we had purchased in the past that was stolen, the corporations that just generously gave of items, the friends who sent gifts to make us smile, and the people who called to check up on us (from the local police to our hospital social worker to friends).

I hate the cliché of "everything happens for a reason", even after this situation I still hate it. I will offer an alternative,

In each situation there is a life lesson you are meant to learn.

So here is my life lesson learned; there is a collective beating heart of humanity. When your heart breaks in life others stop to grieve with you and offer to repair, when your heart rejoices humanity gathers to celebrate with you. People from all over the country rallied to help us, we are all human, our hearts beat as one.

New to us wheels!

So here is my early morning, coffee sponsored way of saying thank you. Thank you for helping us. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for crying with us. Thank you for reaching out to companies to tell our story, thank you for showing up with news crews to spread the word that we needed help, thank you for giving of your time and resources and finances. We are so grateful. Although I know we can never fully repay all of you we humbly add our heartbeat to yours. If you need a friend we are here.


Love to all of you,
The Heidenbergs

Secret Option 3?

This week I have learned that insurance companies are in a constant internal conflict with their mission and their bottom line. We buy insurance and pay monthly with the promise that if the house burns down or your spouse dies unexpectedly or your car is stolen out of your driveway that they will come to the rescue. Not so. I have paid my own car insurance for half my life, each month I cut a check to a promise that they will have my back if Hell comes knocking. This week I have decided that insurance is also Hell.

I told ABC News that I am not sure how this ends but in our situation things only get worse and not better. That has always been the case. Charities lend a hand and a fundraiser might help but at the end of the day each MRI adds to a huge bill we cannot pay screwing up our debt to income ratio making

it impossible to buy a home or get a car loan. This was not a huge issue over the last few years, we have a lovely home we rent from sweet friends which suits our purposes and I took out my car loan before Emma was ill so I was "grandfathered" into it. Then my car is stolen.

See here is the issue, if the insurance decides to cut a check for what they believe is the value of the car they will chop it up before it gets to me. They take a piece for themselves for the deductible (because apparently paying every month for 15 years did not give them enough of my money) then what I owe still on my car loan comes out and the rest goes to us. I did the math...it will not be enough unless for some reason they assess my van to be of great value (I will not hold my breath). So I will be sitting here with a check that is not enough to buy another car that I would feel safe putting my kids inside and driving three hours to Stanford in Bay Area traffic.

Let's pretend the van is recovered by police. We all know that insurance will pay the bare minimum on repairs to the car. I can tell you now that I will never feel safe in that car ever again. What if it was used in a drug deal and now people recognize it as a dealer van? What if there is stuff hidden in the car from the thief that could hurt my children? What if, what if, what if...my Mommy brain goes wild. These scenarios have been keeping me awake at night.

Option 1 is not enough money to buy another car, option 2 is a recovered van that makes my anxiety go insane.

Like I said, pretty sure this doesn't end well.

After ABC News10 aired our story we had a few new donations to our Go Fund Me, that was such a blessing and those funds are being put aside to go toward a car. A huge heartfelt thank you to every donation, every little bit makes us feel like we are not in this alone. My prayer is for secret option 3, a miracle. Pray for that please.

If you missed our news segment you can see it here, ABC Story, our GoFundMe is just the one we have used for the last three years, when they cut us a check at the end of the month I will put it aside for the car, GoFundMe. If any of you are in the Bay Area or Central Valley my sweet friend is putting on a garage sale for us. Oddly enough we have been planning that for a month! It was supposed to be just extra funds to make things easier for travel to appointments and living life but now it is car fund.

A huge thank you to everyone who let us borrow car seats, is working hard to replace stolen items in the car, sending us prayer, and working hard on these fundraisers I mentioned. Right now the car seat situation is covered and it looks like the stroller might be covered as well. I will know more today. There were other items in the car not replaced; overnight bags filled with clothes and shoes, new backpacks for school, Hope's puppy kennel, Hope's puppy bed for the car, Emma's iPod (I gave her my iPod to prevent having to listen to "Let it Go" 100 times on our hospital travels!), and some of our favorite toys.

 

If you see us around town try not to talk about everything that we lost unless Emma brings it up, there were tons of tears yesterday as she recalled things that were in the car. It was heartbreaking to explain to a child so young what theft means and why bad people take things that do not belong to them. If she brings it up by all means let her talk.

 

Thank you again for all the help and support, we are so thankful!

"Mommy, Where's Your Car?"

It was a normal Sunday morning, I was preparing breakfast and the kids were running around making requests for pancakes and berries while I sleepily made coffee.

"Mommy, where's your car?" Emma asked.
"In the driveway honey."
"It's not there."
"Yes it is."
"No...where's your car Mommy?"

I walked out from the kitchen to our living room and sure enough, a blank driveway. No way, my car was stolen!? Brad and I looked at each other in disbelief. "My car was stolen?" I knew I had seen it at 10pm the night before when I was preparing our bread dough. Now it is gone. Phone calls, police reports, insurance reports...now I sit staring at my empty driveway.

My life was in that car. Three expensive car seats, my running stroller, Hope's puppy kennel, Emma's Kindle Fire with all her downloaded Disney movies for hospital trips, my iPod...oh no my iPod! It may have been old but it was mine! I feel so violated, I feel sad, I feel like a bad country song.

In the span of one month Emma's tumors have enhanced, I was diagnosed with PTSD, I had to fire a doctor for the first time ever, Brad had his own cancer scare and a minor surgery to remove it, and now my car has been stolen along with so many of our belongings. I am beginning to take this personally.

I keep thinking we have hit rock bottom, then something else happens. At this point I am not sure it will ever get better. What to know some irony in all of this? I was supposed to teach Sunday School today, the topic I was assigned was Job. Umm ya, can't make this stuff up.

So today I will take a lesson from Job, I will continue to trust in God and that He has some sort of master plan for us. Although I have no idea what that entails (and I hope it has no more tragedy) I will trust that He cries with us.

For those of you who have asked about what happens now, I am not completely sure. Our insurance dept that handles stolen cars is only open Monday - Friday. I will call first thing tomorrow and figure out where to go from here. My hope is in the end this will somehow become a blessing for us. After all, we did hit rock bottom today...right?

The Week Hope Came Home

It was a hot Tuesday morning, teeny puppy yelps echoed through the orchard. Her litter was in a large running area, I wondered silently to myself if I would recognize her or if the sea of fluffy amber hair would camouflage our baby. Puppies all ran up to us singing happily and begging for cuddles. Then I saw her waiting patiently in the back. I saw her and she saw me. She came forward and I picked her up. Her tail wagged with joy as she nuzzled my neck. I put her collar on her and handed to Emma. They locked eyes and instantly there was love. She was always meant to be part of our family. We knew it and she knew it. Family.

Ever since Tuesday we have we have been lost in puppy cuddles, sweet awkward play around the house, and documenting all the funny ways she falls asleep. She is not even trained yet but she is already contributing so much. She has kept Emma calm at night so she falls asleep sooner, she stays happy in her room waiting for the rest of the house to wake up while she plays with her puppy, and she has not had a tantrum out in public with Hope. If anyone ever had any doubts about the power of a dog and human relationship they should see Emma's before and after.

In a couple weeks Hope will be old enough to begin puppy training. After those 6 weeks of classes she will move on to more intense training. I plan to be there with Emma in tow so Hope learns she answers to an Alpha and a Beta in this family. She is already learning so fast so I have lofty dreams of her completing her training to be an official Seeing Eye Dog!

To everyone who helped us gather funds to bring her home we are so very thankful! We still need to raise as we go to pay for her training but getting her home was by far the biggest financial hurdle. Now we have just small hurdles to jump financially but more responsibility placed on us!

Here are some more pictures of the girls.

In Pieces

I have been lacking in the blogging department lately. I fell apart. You know the people who stay calm in an emergency? The people that can give CPR and hold someone together while help arrives. The person that has a clear head in a car accident. The person that remembers to grab the important papers when the house is about to burn down? That's me. I stay calm during the fight. When the dust settles I fall apart. This fight has been so long that I have broken down a few times along the way. Things would get dark from shear exhaustion and I would dig myself back out and press on. I was doing better. I was running, I was healthy, I was happy for the first time in a long time.

Then the call came. The Oncologist said she's not worried...yet. I stood and listened to her telling me what to watch for, "side weakness, slurring, vomiting, headaches, night terrors..." Suddenly I was no longer "fit and healthy Anya" I was broken in pieces, so many pieces. She told me again not to worry as I said my good byes but all I could hear were the words spoken by our first doctor three years ago telling me the same thing. "Don't worry, it's rare, odds are she will be fine". Then growth, surgery, cancer, more surgery, chemo...it all started this way.

My mind knew that the odds are in her favor but my heart was done being disappointed. Suddenly I found myself having nightmares, flash backs, panic attacks, hopelessness, helplessness, paranoia. I am on a support group for "Momcologists" and a mother shared an info graphic on the difference between depression and PTSD. Out of 20 symptoms I had 18. I called my doctor.

Now that I have this new diagnosis and a change in medication I am starting to claw my way out of this dark hole and back into normalcy. Part of my constant worry is that I feel like I am not strong enough to do this all again. I am too broken, too defeated, too poor, too emotionally bankrupt.

I am trying to keep my eyes upward and maintain a positive outlook. I decided not to tell Emma

about her tumor enhancement and let her have a nice summer. Her service puppy, Hope, comes home on Tuesday and I know that will help both of us stay happy and light. We also have the start of a new school year and Gracie's Make a Wish in September.

As we finish out the summer we can use a lot of prayer. Emma's next scan is in September after Make a Wish. We also need help fundraising for Hope's training expenses. It will be a lengthy process.

I know this is not the most uplifting update but I have always tried to be honest with everyone who watches Emma's story. This is childhood cancer. Momcologists are all depressed and have PTSD and live paycheck to paycheck hoping for brighter times. We are all tired. I encourage you if you know a local family fighting cancer to bring them flowers or a meal or a gift card. Show them that you are still watching and praying and caring. So many of us stop hearing from people after a few months into the fight. It is too hard to fight it alone. Love them, love them all.

Momcologists: I Will Be Their Voice

How are you doing?

No one wants to hear a real answer.

Not unless she is also a Momcologist (cancer mom). She doesn't want to hear the real feelings, what is really going on, the bills you can't pay, your fears...you just keep those to yourself.

I have a lot of Momcologist friends. Once we were thrust into this world I found myself having little in common with my current group of friends. Some disappeared, some tried to help, some did not know what to say or do, only a couple stepped up in a huge way. I drifted away from most relationships and discovered solstice and comfort in the arms of other cancer moms. Over the last three years I have asked, "how are you doing?" to them and knowing I want a real answer I have heard some horrible stories. I decided it was high time to put an end to all this silence. These are stories and things that have happened to my community I have kept it all anonymous,

- Many of us end our marriages. Some stay together for the sake of the kids but lost each other somewhere in this mess. Some drifted to other arms, some fell into a bottle and never came out, and some just drifted. I hate to say that the statistic of divorce or separation among my cancer friend families is about 60%.

- We can't pay our bills. Lets just put aside the hundreds of thousands in medical debt and focus on just normal bills. We can't pay them. Why? Because when our kids got sick someone had to be a full time parent / care taker. 100% of the families I know this was the mother. We have to stay home full time so we can spend endless hours on the phone scheduling appointments, drive our kids for hours and hours to specialists that are too far from home, live in the hospital with our child so a guardian can watch their vitals and pray, homeschool our kids since they miss so much school from appointments and are immune compromised...so so so many reasons. My point is we all fell to a single income. Anyone will tell you it is really hard to raise kids on a single income, then add all the extra travel expenses and co-pays for visits or medicine and you have a recipe for disaster. Statistically 1 in 11 of us will file bankruptcy, I think that's is low because to file costs money...oh the irony!

- We are not okay. We spend hours crying alone. We put on a brave face in front of our children as the doctors describe horror then we retreat to the bathroom to throw up and scream. We lost weight, we gained weight, we developed health conditions from stress, we are on antidepressants, and anxiety medication. Many of us have had suicidal thoughts.

- We try to prepare for the worst and imagine our child's funeral. What would she wear? Would people come? What would I say in the eulogy?

- It is never over. Even if our child survives we live in constant fear of a relapse. Every fever, every bump, every rash is cause for concern. We panic at every MRI, lumbar puncture, and appointment. Life never goes back to normal. Ever.

- We are highly insulted that our children only get 4% of cancer research funding but even more enraged that no one cares.

- After 3 months, 6 months, a year...people stop caring, praying, and offering help. So many fundraisers go unattended. People look the other way. Friends and family judge you for not working.

- We lose our homes and cars in repos and foreclosures. Banks do not care if your kid has cancer.

- Some of us do not have help. Family doesn't live with us, babysitters cannot be afforded, grandparents do not go to chemo with us. We do it all alone. Sometimes pulling over in a corn field on the way home to have a panic attack.

I wanted to share this with all of you because it hurts to hear these stories from brave women that I love dearly. I will be their voice, I will speak. Why? Because I want you to pay attention the next time you see a friend who has a cancer kid. Ask her how she is doing, offer to babysit non cancer kids to give her a break, offer to pay a utility bill, stop her and pray for her right then and there, show up to her home with a pound of coffee and a bottle of wine, demand more funding for our kids, donate stuff to children's hospitals for the mothers (like leggings, coffee cards, reusable water bottles, books for her to read bed side, lotion, make up, adult coloring books...) but most of all I hope this opens your eyes to our world. Although I love these women I pray you never join us.

the day Emma met Hope

Today we took a trip out to meet puppy Hope. She was a teeny little one week old ball of love. Her eyes were still closed. Sarah, the breeder, placed Hope in Emma's hands and we took this picture. As Auntie Andrea said, in that moment you can actually see Emma holding her future. Freedom, peace, love. All of that in her tiny little hands. Hope is so much more than a puppy. She represents a new life for Emma. Help navigating public places, comfort at night when she has her night terrors, a constant companion who will provide her friendship and love.

It means so much to her but mostly it means a lot to ME. For these last few years I have watched Emma suffer greatly. I have placed her limp body in the arms of surgeons, I have held her angry body as she goes blind slowly and does not understand what is happening, I drove her all over our state seeking the best care possible and 2nd / 3rd/ 4th opinions. So much of this has been out of my control. I could not perform the operation myself to make sure it was done right. I could not kill the tumor. I could not stop her nightmares. Most cancer moms or "Momcologists" will tell you that we feel helpless. We wish we could do more. Well now I can. I have a positive outlet for my energy. I will train this dog and it will help Emma. For once I have a real, tangible thing I can do that will have a lasting impact on my daughter.

Hope is named for what she is, she is hope to us. She represents all the hope I have for Emma in being a peaceful, mobile, and self sufficient adult. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping us provide this for Emma. It means so much!

Ways you can help:
- Prayer, this will take a ton of time and energy!
- Connect us with trainers
- Fundraise with us! We have a LuLaRoe party next weekend, info on our other blog post.
- Pass down dog / puppy things. If anyone has gently used doggy things we will happily take them for Hope!