In the eleven and a half years that Mark and I have been parents, we’ve heard the words “Your child has cancer” on three separate occasions. And each time, it stunned us and terrified us and brought us to our knees. But every day we know that we’re the lucky ones because we’ve never had […]
Some of you may have seen this yesterday when I posted it on Facebook, but it’s worth a click to enlarge: It provides us all with some fairly good reasoning for why we need to fund pediatric cancer research. Not that many of us actually needed that reasoning, but there it is. But you know […]
I guess people really needed to hear those words: Your work is not in vain, because that post was by far the most viewed and most shared one I’ve ever written. It’s not the best I’ve ever written, but the message undoubtedly resonated with people. We are hungry to know we are not alone in […]
Weather is a funny thing. When you’re in the midst of it, at least when you’re in the midst of any of its many extreme forms, you feel as if what you’re experiencing is somehow special, unique. That you’re the only one who’s ever been that cold. That no other walk to school has been […]
I never intended to stop blogging after Rebecca died. It just sort of happened. I’d been writing a lot, mostly about her, then summer got underway and when the next big thing worth sharing was our trip to Brazil, and when that trip included the “tragedy” of sitting on a flooded freeway for seven hours […]
When I was a freshman in high school, I took an introductory journalism course. That spring, a girl I’d known from my neighborhood went with the Heights instrumental music program on a trip to Asia, where she contracted a rare lung disease, which landed her in a coma upon her return home. She died on […]
This kid we can call a survivor. A four-year survivor. Today’s scans, which included blood work, a chest x-ray, EKG, ECHO, and abdominal ultrasound, all came back clear. Unchanged, no evidence of disease, and (my fave) unremarkable. Which always strikes me as ever so remarkable. As we walked out of the Clinic hand in hand […]
We may never get to use the word “survivor” to describe Becca Meyer. But let me tell you, that girl is surviving. Yesterday, today, and, we certainly hope, tomorrow, she is living a life so filled with love and laughter and friendship and family that some may be rightfully envious of her. She is alive […]
I lied to Kat Meyer. It was early last fall, after the kids had gone back to school and her family was briefly home in Cleveland during their months-long stay at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I told her, expert that I was in such things, that the year ahead would be exhausting. It would […]
This might be part one in a series titled Death in the Age of Facebook, about which I have a fair amount to say. But let’s start with this: Positive thinking does not cure cancer. A good attitude will not help you survive. It’s a lovely idea, of course, one that makes us feel like […]