May the Fourth be with you

Happy Star Wars Day!  The month of May will forever be a hard one for me, because nearly two years ago, the most perfect, beautiful little boy in the world was stolen by childhood cancer.  I did not know him personally, but he and I will always be connected because we both fought the same battle, with different outcomes.  He is no longer here to be spicy, to be wild and free, to cause trouble like he so loved to do.  He is not here to enjoy his new baby sister Poppy with the rest of his family.

Because of freaking neuroblastoma.

I know this is brain cancer awareness month, but cancer does not care what month it is.  It did not care that it stole Ronan’s life just 3 days before his 4th birthday.  He should still be here, about to turn six, this year on Mother’s Day.  I know for a fact that Maya would not mind sharing her day with him, because that would mean he was still here.  He loved Star Wars, and I imagine all his birthday parties would be Star Wars themed until he outgrew his love for it, if he ever did.

Two years ago, I started following Maya Thompson’s blog on here, before I even started this one.  Maya is Ronan’s mama, and through her words, I fell in love with this little boy.  No words can describe how much each and every word she wrote on there touched me.  I knew, and still know that, without a doubt, she would be the one who changes the face of childhood cancer, with her mafia behind her – Maya’s mafia of soldiers against childhood cancer.  Not just neuroblastoma, but pediatric cancer as a whole.  Because Ronan should still be here.  All the children should be able to grow up to be anything they want.

Maya and Ronan Thompson inspire me, just like they inspired Taylor Swift to write (compile, really, since she took Maya’s own words from her blog) and perform this song at the Stand Up to Cancer telethon last September.  You can watch the clip of her performing it live here.  You will cry, but Ronan deserves your tears because he never should have died in the first place.

May the fourth be with you, Ro. Wherever you are.

Go Gray In May for Brain Cancer Awareness Month

 

It is possible to love someone you never even met.  It is possible to have your heart broken by perfect strangers.  It’s just how the story goes if you are a childhood cancer advocate, or any advocate, for that matter.  Everyone has their heart broken at least once or twice in their lifetime.  When we feel something so deeply, when it is as personal as the fight for childhood cancer awareness and advocating for cures is for me, we can’t help but have our hearts broken over and over.  I have said before on here that every single day, my heart breaks.  My heart breaks for the children lost, for the parents, and the families, for the world as a whole, because the world will never again be touched physically by a particular child ever again.

A couple of years ago, I read this book, “Notes Left Behind“ by Brooke and Keith Desserich, and was introduced to the horror that is Diffuse Intrinsic  Pontine Glioma (DIPG).  DIPG is a brain stem tumor, and because of the delicate location, it literally has a zero percent cure rate.  It is difficult to treat. Before I picked up this book, I had no idea what it was.  My experience with cancer before reading it was regulated to neuroblastoma, which I had, and reading books about characters with leukemia.  This book opened my eyes to a lot of things when I read it in 2009, but it wasn’t until two years later that I really began advocating for pediatric cancer (more on that later this month).

This book was written about a little girl named Elena, who had this awful tumor.  I have mentioned her before on this blog, but I have never really talked about who she is.  Today, if she was still here, she would have been 12 years old.  I look at her picture now, and my heart breaks all over again for her family, for the world as a whole.  She was and is so beautiful.

 

Elena… There are no words, and yet there are ALL the words (and tears) for her.  At five years old, she was diagnosed with DIPG, and during her 9 month battle with the disease, she hid hundreds of love notes between throughout her house and the houses of relatives.  They were in between pages of books, in cupboards, in bags, even tucked in with clothes stashed away for winter.  Each one is like a hug from their little girl.  Her parents did not tell her that she wasn’t going to make it through this because they did not want to focus on the cancer, but rather on being a family and on doing the things that Elena wanted to do.   Despite having radiation (chemotherapy does not have any effect on this cancer), Elena deteriorated rapidly, losing her ability to speak and eventually becoming paralyzed.  But this brilliant, brave little girl refused to be silenced.  She continued to write love notes for her family, including her grandparents and her favorite dog, who belonged to her aunt.  Her parents found the first note a few days after Elena passed away in August 2007.

The book was their way of preserving Elena’s memory for her younger sister, Gracie, who was just 5 years old when Elena died.  I read it and cried over it, and fell in love with this precious little girl, whose dreamed of being a mother and a teacher.  She was, and is still, so amazing.  She was the first person I thought of this morning when I opened my eyes.  These days, I often wake up long before my alarm goes off.  I am unsure about what wakes me up.  I fall asleep exhausted but I don’t stay asleep for long, and I know it’s because of the children…  Childhood cancer is the NUMBER ONE cause of death by disease in children.  Every 4 hours a child dies from one form or another.  Pediatric brain cancer is the most deadliest form, and DIPG, well, just look at the statistics.  Zero percent cure rate.

It’s the first day of May, which is National Brain Cancer Awareness Month.  Please do what you can to spread the word…  Wear gray.  Buy “Notes Left Behind” and educate yourself and others.  And most of all, in the words of 12 year old Jessica Joy Rees, who also had DIPG and passed away less than a year and a half ago, NEGU (Never Ever Give Up).   The children are waiting…

Last Week

My appointment last Thursday went well. I had x-rays, and I got the tape taken off my back (didn’t really feel it ripping off, which was probably a good thing). It has always been painful for me to view my own x-rays, because although I can feel my scoliosis, seeing it in black and white is another thing altogether.  I think it is easier to pretend it doesn’t exist when I am not looking at the evidence.  I can feel it, but seeing it is another thing altogether.  It makes it more real, and that reality cuts through everything, even happiness.

My upper back still itches more than anything, although it is not constant like it was with the tape on. Two nights before my appointment, however, I felt a pinching in my right shoulder. It hasn’t gone away yet, although the physician’s assistant told me to just give it time. I don’t feel it at all when I lay down, so that is how I am spending most of my time these days.  In the weeks before my surgery, I was having stomach trouble. I went to my primary care doctor a couple times because it got to be too much, and it was going on for too long for my personal comfort. I was losing weight. They eventually took my blood to test, and that is how I found out that I am anemic. I am taking iron supplements now, and although I feel tired most of the time, I am lucky because I can rest when I need to.

On Friday morning, I had another appointment to check my stomach issues out further. I have had heartburn since high school, even though I didn’t know what heartburn was back then. I suspect my scoliosis causes this. I can see and feel why it would, even without viewing any x-rays. I can’t really stand or sit up straight unless I force myself. I am not a very active person by nature, because everything else I do takes so much energy that most of the time I end up having no spare energy at all. After I saw the orthopedic surgeon and had my back x-rayed, he wanted a CT scan to get a clearer picture of what was going on.  I mean, it was clear on the x-rays.  We could see the broken area and we could see exactly why it was hurting where it was (in the x-rays, the top of the rod looked like it was going to poke through me, which made me wince…) But the surgeon wanted the CT to be sure.  So he got it.  And he found something weird.  A shadow.  An ultrasound revealed it to be a huge benign tumor, thank goodness, and now I have to go see another doctor for that.  Happy, happy, joy, joy.  When it rains, it pours, right?  But through it all, I trust God…

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  ~ Isaiah 41:10

On a brighter note, it is now 75 more days until my brother Patrick gets married!  So much to do, so little time!

One Word, One Year

 

2013 holds a lot of promise.  It is a brand new year, and with it comes a lot of hope.  Hope that maybe this is the year that the children get heard, that childhood cancer gets a lot more than 3% of federal funding.  As TheTruth365 film pointed out, both the White House and Congress voted unanimously in 2008 to increase funding for childhood cancer research. This plan fell by the wayside when they didn’t properly fund the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act.  Because of this, nothing has changed.

When I think of this, I think of all the little lives lost, I get so upset.  These children could still be here, if only.  They SHOULD still be here.  It is utterly mind-boggling to me that if only politicians put the future of this country first, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.  Children would not be dying.  There would be cures.  There would be hope.  When parents receive a cancer diagnosis for their child, the first question that springs to mind would not be, “Is my child going to die?”  Instead, the thoughts would be like, “Okay, breathe, what do we have to do to beat this?”

This year, I am going to focus on one thing:  advocating.  One word, one year.  Things can change.  I know it.  I believe it.  I don’t mean I have to do more – I mean I have to utilize what I have and use it for the good of these children.  I have words to give.  I have a truth to tell.  Even if it means that I have to tell my story so many times I am practically blue in the face, I will do it.  Children deserve better.  They deserve every chance at life, every opportunity.  They have to be protected.   They are the future.  They need to be treated like it.

Advocate:  my one word for this year.  What I am focusing on, what 2013 will stand for, is the children.  I will advocate for them, because once upon a time, I was one of them.  I got this one word idea from SheLoves/Magazine.com.  It makes sense to me.  Before, I think I was trying to focus on too many things at once and gave up, because it got to be exhausting.  No more.  I will focus on advocating for those who deserve so much more than what they get.  I will advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves.  I will advocate for those who deserve every single promising opportunity that life tosses their way.

As SheLoves/Magazine.com states, my one word isn’t another to-do list.  It is simply a direction I want this year to take.  The last two years since I have started going down this road have been eye-opening.  I know what I am doing now.  I know where I want to be.  And that is exactly where I am right now.

I challenge you to choose one word for this year as well.

 

More on TheTruth365

 

I know I have used that image above before, but it is so perfect for what TheTruth365 stands for that I cannot resist using it again.  The Truth365:  what did I think?  MUCH more importantly, what did you think?  The truth about childhood cancer was laid out for you, raw, bare, and so, so, so, so, so heartbreaking.  Are you asking yourselves the same questions I’ve asked myself over and over again?

Why is the public not more aware of this?  Why is childhood cancer taboo?  Like little Katie reads from The Lorax in the beginning of the documentary, “UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.”  That quote is just perfect for this social media campaign.  Even more than that, I love what she says at the end of the film.  If you haven’t watched the film yourself, I am not going to ruin it for you…  Ha, ha!

TheTruth365 documentary really says it all.  It tugs at heartstrings,  It pulls at your emotions.  It talks about the common misconceptions about childhood cancer.  It has parents speaking to you as if you are in the same room as them, parents whose hearts are shattered and broken because their child is gone.

Could you look those parents in the eyes?  Could you reach out to hug them? Could you help them make sure that their child’s fight and their child’s death will not be for nothing?  And more importantly, if you were in their shoes, could you continue to fight for the other children who have and will have cancer?  Could you be as brave and as determined?

In the video, the ways you can help are outlined.  You can share it with EVERYONE YOU KNOW.  This is very important, because without awarenesss, where are we going to get funding for more research, better treatment options?  You are doing more than sharing just another youtube video.  You are helping.  You are spreading awareness.  Awareness is key.  Most people I talk to these days, the people who aren’t directly “touched” by childhood cancer, often have NO idea it is this big a problem.  They really have no idea that every single day, 36.9 kids are diagnosed (that number is much more accurate than 46, by the way, and although it is less, it is by no means any less serious…  and I think the decimal point is there because, although you can’t have 90% of a kid, every single day is different, and the number can change daily – children are more than statistics.  They have names.  They have faces.  They have parents, siblings, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.  They have whole stories).

Go to TheTruth365 website and see which members of Congress support kids with cancer and which don’t.  Persistence is key here.  Contact them and ask them for their support.  Keep on doing it.  I know most of us lead very busy lives, but if it was your child fighting for his or her life, or even a child you knew, you would be asking right along with me.  You know it.  I know it.  Everybody knows it.  And the kicker is that nobody even things for one minute that childhood cancer can touch their child and by proxy, their lives…  until it actually does.  It is then that the wishing begins…  if only you knew what to look for, if only you were aware this could happen…

No amount of preparation can prepare you for the reality of childhood cancer.  It will still bring you to your knees.  It will still make you pray to a God you are no longer sure you believe in because THIS happened.  And yet, it is faith that sees many families through…  because without faith in God, they would just give up the second the fight got too difficult to bear.

And last but not least, sign the petition.  There is no Pediatric Oncologist on the National Cancer Advisory board as it is, which is part of the problem. No one is speaking for the kids except us, the survivors, the kids themselves, the parents, the families, and the friends. Childhood cancer is NOT RARE! 36.9 kids every single day are diagnosed, and 7 more kids die every single day. And that is just in the U.S.A. Once upon a time, I was one of these kids diagnosed, and it makes me SO upset that nothing has changed since then. Please sign this petition. Please share. It is on the White House petition site so it DOES MATTER and it DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. We need 25,000 signatures to get it in front of Congress and the President. We can do this!

And oh!  We have less than a week to get the remaining 21,000 plus signatures.  In the words of Audrey Hepburn, “Nothing’s impossible. The word itself says, ‘I’m possible.”

 

November Gratitude List Part 1

 

I started a gratitude list on Facebook yesterday.  The deal is to list something you are grateful for every single day this month, but because I probably won’t remember some days, I am posting them all here, in 3 separate posts.  So here goes!

1.  I am thankful I can offer hope to other families when I tell them I am a stage 4 neuroblastoma survivor. There is nothing like hope, I tell you.  It is what inspires us to NEGU.  Childhood cancer advocating is a large part of what I was born to do.

2.  I am thankful that I was born into one of the BEST families out there (and yes, I’m kinda biased).  I have so many treasured memories!  My family never ever gave up on me, and I know that they will continue to never ever give up.  Because of that, I will NEGU either.

3.  I am thankful for my friends…  old and new.  You guys make my world go round!  There are too many of you to name, so I won’t even attempt to because of the risk of forgetting some of you, but you know who you are.  The love of my biological family and my adopted family (my friends) will always be one of the very best parts of me.

4.  I am thankful for the support and love of the close-knit childhood cancer community on Facebook, which welcomed me as an advocate and a survivor with open arms.  We NEGU for the kids.

5.  I am thankful the warmth of my home and for the coldness of the season (and the next) which just makes me appreciate the warmth even more.  Hot chocolate, my mom’s homemade soups and sweet treats, and warm, comfortable clothes make the cold tolerable.  Ha.

6.  I am thankful I live in United States of America and for the fact that I am free and capable of making up my own mind about things.  No one has the right to tell me that I am wrong, and if they do, so what?  I know who I am, and what I stand for, and that’s all that matters.

7.  I am thankful for my little dog, even though she thinks my bed is HERS.  I love it when she lays her head on my leg/ ankle/foot/whatever it may be.  The joy of having a dog, especially this dog, is indescribable.  Her company is priceless to me.  I even love waking up to find that she is edging me out of bed – because it means that she’s there and I’m not alone.  She just wants to be close to me.  She knows she is loved!

8. I am thankful for the gift of my lil niece, Miss Aliza.  She’s growing up so fast, and is so smart and funny and beautiful.  She helps me look at the world from a different perspective (that of a child) than mine.  Children have a tendency to remind us what is really important, and I pray that I’ll never forget the lessons Aliza teaches me.  Being her aunt is one of the greatest blessings of my life, and I cannot wait to meet whoever comes along next!

9.  I am thankful for the fact that, even though we hurt so much in this life, there is also great healing too.  In the end, everything will be okay.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.  Sometimes, the healing is not on this side of life, but in Heaven.  And that’s okay.  I am also grateful for the knowledge that, no matter how much I don’t understand it, God does NOT give children cancer.  He does NOT give anyone cancer or any other disease.  He allows it, that is true, but we just have to trust He has his reasons.  Perhaps that reason is so we could be at a certain place at a certain time.  We won’t know in this lifetime.  When we all get to heaven, this life will seem like a dream compared to eternity with everyone we love and will love in our lifetimes.  As little Starla Chapman said, “Just trust.”

10.  I am thankful for God’s plan, because even though I may not see what He sees or know what He knows, everything that is going to happen is happening on His terms, not mine.  If He just left me alone to deal with things by myself, I would not be here today.  I truly believe that.  He has GRACE and I have GRATITUDE, and it’s all going to be fine in the end.  I’ve surrendered my heart and I’m trusting.  That said, I don’t have any idea how anyone can look at the messes this world makes and not believe in something better, in a perfect place where everything is as it should be.  THIS can’t be all there is.  We have to be more than what we already are, because if there’s nothing else after this, there is no reason to get out of bed and do the same things we did the day before.  If there is nothing else after this, then hope dies.  And hope never dies.  It can’t…  because if it did, it wouldn’t be hope.

TheTruth365 Day 5: Taylor Love

 

The Truth: This Day 5 Preview video has special meaning for me for a few reasons. First of all, the kid in this video is Taylor Love and she is the one who got me involved in this cause. Over 5 years ago I met her and her awesome family and my life will never be the same. The second reason is that Taylor is doing well right now and just got clear scan results. She has fought neuroblastoma and then chemo-induced leukemia requiring a bone marrow transplant and then kidney failure and then liver surgery this spring plus a bunch of other things that I have lost track of. The third reason is that the song is the theme song to our film. It is called “The Truth” and it is written by Nicole Ricken, a 14-year-old from the Chicago area. I met her this spring at a Pennies for Patients fundraiser at her school that was partially for Taylor Love. A few months later I went to Chicago to interview some families for the film and stopped in to meet with Nicole and her family. One of the amazing things was that she wrote this song the day before I got there. She and her family also flew in the DC-area on September 1 and Nicole played this at Ryan Raffel’s Celebration of Life. Please check it out. -Mike G.

That paragraph above was written and posted with the day 5 preview of TheTruth365 video, which you can watch here.  The song is so beautiful.  I hope they publish the lyrics to it because, being hard-of-hearing, I have no idea what the song actually says (if you want to know what it sounds like to me, it sounds like a foreign language).

I love Taylor!  I found her page on Facebook shortly after I found Ronan Thompson.  I even saw Mike Gillette on her Facebook page, and I never ever expected him to undertake such a huge, huge, huge project such as this social media campaign to help raise childhood cancer awareness. Every now and then, people surprise you.  But I can’t really say I’m surprised.  These kids deserve to have somebody in their corner, and I am so glad that Mike and Dena Scarpelli-Sherwood have stepped up to the plate.  Because without them, I think this September would be just like last September, with National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month largely being ignored and grossly overshadowed by breast cancer awareness pink.  Last year, where was the gold?  Nowhere I could see.  This September, that is changing.  It had better.

Nowhere to go but up, right?

If you want to know more about Taylor’s story, you can visit her facebook page.  She is the true essence of a cancer warrior.

Like The Truth365 page here and help the word get out:  Kids get cancer too, and they cannot fight alone.

Sign the petition here to “support an increase in pediatric cancer funding by the National Cancer Institute with the goal of eliminating cancer cancer as a threat to all children” (what the petition says and what you are signing and agreeing to).

Visit my Facebook page and “like” it to join the fight against this monster called childhood cancer that keeps stealing the lives of children.

About TheTruth365

Guess what happened?  TheTruth365 website launched!  Can I get a round of “ALLELUIAS” please?  Things are going to happen really fast now, especially since September is just around the corner.  I know I have talked about this before, and that some people know what it is because they are friends with me on Facebook.   One of society’s common misconceptions is that childhood cancer isn’t that big of a deal, because it is “exceedingly rare.”  I am really beginning to hate that phrase, because not only is it not true, but I’ve seen it repeated ad nauseam.  I mean, those words make me sick every time I see or hear them because they are just not true.  In this country alone, childhood cancer strikes 46 times every single day.  It also claims 7 more little lives every single day.  World wide, the numbers grow.  365 days a year.  Go ahead.  Do the math.  It is appalling, isn’t it?

And nothing has changed since I was a pediatric cancer patient in the 1980s.  Do you know what a blow that was when I found that out early last year and what a blow that still is?  It is like people do not care about the children.  That is like saying they do not care about the future of this country, the future of the world.  For the life of me, I cannot understand that.  People are looking the other way while children are dying?  NOT OKAY!  All those St. Jude commercials you see on TV of happy, smiling, giggling bald children are not the norm.  As I have said before on here, that is just kids being kids despite what is wrong with them.  Those commercials do not show you the bad moments, the bad days, the tears, the screams, the vomiting.  None of that.  I wonder what would happen if they did?  Would the public go on a childhood cancer witch hunt?

We’re gonna find out what the public would do on September 13th, thanks to Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation (AWOCCF) and Band of Parents.  Social media is a very powerful tool, and TheTruth365 is going to utilize it to bring some much needed attention to the lack of childhood cancer awareness and funding to the world.

We want it to go viral in the worst way!  And the best way too, because that is the only way the kids with cancer are going to benefit from this.  We are using Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.  We are asking everyone we know to get involved, including celebrities and political candidates.  In fact, that National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month coincides with the election is perfect.  We want all political officials to recognize  childhood cancer as a serious problem (which it is) and we are demanding that they adjust their agendas to include the youngest generations.  After all, isn’t it true that there would not be a future without the children?

Me?  I cannot wait to see what changes TheTruth365 brings to the world.  If I know one thing for certain, it is that nothing will ever be the same again once September 13th dawns on America!

Frustration

I heard from the state of Virginia’s Office of the Governor a couple days ago in response to my letter about childhood cancer.  I was excited at first, because of how it began:

Governor McDonnell asked me to respond on his behalf to your letter regarding childhood cancer.  Thank you for bringing this important issue to our attention.  I am happy to learn you survived pediatric cancer, albeit with some disabilities, and that you have become an advocate for children facing these cancers.  Each year, over 300 children in the Commonwealth are diagnosed with some form of cancer.  

I want to assure you that we do care about all our young citizens and their families facing a cancer diagnosis.  In September 2011, Governor McDonnell issued a proclamation for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month to help raise awareness in our state.  This proclamation can be viewed here.  In addition, Virginia does offer resources to assist pediatric cancer patients and their families.

It goes on for two pages, outlining what Virginia does for its sick children.  The state department of health has a “Care Connection Network” for children with “special” health care needs.  The letter also states that the majority of Virginian children do have health insurance (nowhere in my letter to Robert McDonnell did I even mention the word insurance, but…  good to know).  They have a statewide cancer registry:

Hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and physicians are required to report cancers to the registry, which analyzes data on cancers occurring in all age groups, including children.  This data allows public health officials to monitor occurrence and to identify areas to target for cancer prevention and control efforts.  

The secretary (the person who wrote the letter) acknowledges  that

Cancers children develop differ substantially from the adult pattern.  Thus, leukemias, brain and nervous system cancers, and lymphomas comprise 60% of childhood cancers, but comprise only 8.3% of adult cancers.  The difference between the two age groups indicates that public health prevention and control policies and activities should be tailored with recognition of this fact.  Surgery (30%), chemotherapy (40%), and radiation therapy (14%) are the most common forms of treatment of childhood cancers.  Hormone therapy (6.7%) is also employed.  The cancer registry does not collect information about unconventional cancer treatments, so that the extent of their use cannot be measured.

Of course the cancer registry does not collect information about unconventional cancer treatments.  Most of these “unconventional” ways have better success rates than the conventional ways, but shhhh….  They don’t want us to know that.

Last September,  hardly anybody outside of the childhood cancer community even knew it was National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.  Pink ribbons overshadowed the gold.  Why?  OCTOBER is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, not September.  Perhaps this was to be expected during the first couple National Childhood Cancer Awareness Months, but this really irritated me.  And I am all for ANY cancer or health problem awareness, but…  I think of the little girls who will never grow breasts because childhood cancer killed them.  And that makes me mad.  And it is no surprise to me that the American Cancer Society has something to do with it.  Of course.  Of course.  Curesearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation helped establish September as National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in 2009, while October was established as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month back in the 1980s.

So, just saying September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is not enough.  I need to see it.  We all need to see it.  The children need to see it.  They need to know that we care, and that we are working to get them more research funding and better treatment protocols.  Because chemotherapy is basically poison, don’t you know?  There is no one chemotherapy made specifically with children in mind.  They all get adult drugs in smaller portions, and sometimes, as it was in my case, there are serious side effects.  When will enough be enough?  When will we finally get it right?

Today is the Someday I’ve Been Waiting For

I’d like to give a shout out to Maya Thompson, mama of Rockstar Ronan.  Yesterday, she ran in the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon without training, and she finished in amazing time – 4 hours and 51 minutes!  Amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it, huh?  She has said, “If kids can fight cancer, then I can run a marathon without training for it.”  Kudos to you, Maya…  I am so proud of you, and I know Ronan is too.   I know you don’t like to hear it, but you ARE an inspiration.  Look at it this way…  Ronan is making you an inspiration.  You and Ronan are gonna take this world by storm.  I’m inspired to create my own statement – “If kids can fight cancer – If I could fight cancer and survive – then I can use my writing gift to help spread awareness.”

This world may be filled to the brim with things that are awful, like childhood cancer and people who lie and say that they are sick but they’re really not, but it doesn’t mean that we should give up.  It means, instead, that we should strengthen our resolve and fight back harder.  It’s the only way we’re going to come out on top.

Someday is today.  It has to be, because tomorrow may never come.  No one knows this better than someone who has lost a loved one.  Cancer is horrible and it deserves to be vanquished.  That is why I enjoy seeing F U Cancer everywhere on Facebook.  Nothing has ever been more deserving of being effed, ever.

If kids have to fight cancer in this day and age, then I’m throwing everything I’ve got at it – my whole mind, body, and soul at it.  I will write and publish novel after novel about it, until people begin to understand the devastation cancer brings and begin to stand up with me.