Monday, September 5, 2011

Gold

I touch on it when I blog in September.

It’s so very important to me. Especially now, as a mom.

Six and a half years ago, it became real. It wasn’t just a St. Jude commercial, distant and vague. It was Morgan. It was a little girl in our boys’ Sunday School class. It was a face we knew, they were parents we talked to, it was a little sister we saw.

It was cancer.

It was aggressive.

It was already stage 4, and they had just found it.

Literally two days before her fifth birthday.

As they told us in that service, I wept, clinging to my daughter. I shared glances with my friend Bethany, who also held her little girl, both of us afraid to let go. Afraid.

And it wasn’t our child. I can’t begin to fathom the fear in the hearts of Morgan’s mom and dad.

Chemo. Radiation. Stem Cell Transplant. 3f8. Central lines. So much to put such a little person through, and they face it. Every day.

It tears my heart out to think about kids having to face the monster that is cancer. It’s difficult enough for an adult, but adults can understand what’s happening. They can face the repeated sticks for blood draws, the injections, the scans, knowing that it’s to help them get better. How do you explain that to a child?

How do you talk about death, their own potential death, with your child?

We lost Morgan nearly a year ago now. She fought, with her family by her side, for 5 and a half years. She was ten years old.

Ten.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

I wear the Gold ribbon for her. For our other friends, those we’ve lost, those still fighting, and those who are NED*.

cancersig

*NED is “No evidence of disease. Many pediatric cancers are not declared “cured” until the patient has been NED for 5 years, the typical window of reoccurrence.

2 comments:

  1. That is a long hard fight ...sweet baby may she RIP

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  2. I never thought much about it in past Septembers... and this September, cancer & childhood cancer are almost all I can think about...

    So sorry to hear about your friends' little girl, but so thankful that they had that time together...

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