Do You Or Someone You Love Have Cancer?

For all my wonderful and precious family and friends who are battling cancer tonight...from someone who has been there....

On April 17th 1995, Adam relapsed with ALL (Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia)..we were in for a very long road… I found this entry from my journal at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital May 14th 1995:



GOD, I hate cancer…I hate the sound, the look, the pain, the tears, the worry, the waiting, the fear, the drugs, the paperwork, the bills, the needles, the IV pumps, the beep of the IV pumps when the nurses don’t come, the sound of the buzzer for the nurses, the chemo, the radiation, fluorescent lights, hospital rooms, waiting rooms ,Dr.’s offices, Dr’s sad faces, the cleaning lady, the coke and candy machines that always seems to need $1.00 when I only have 75 cents… GOD …I hate cancer…

But…

GOD, I love You …I love the sound of Adams’ voice, the look of hope on his face even through the pain and tears, I love my family and friends and their prayers, the patience we gain each day, and the fear we are slowly learning to overcome. God, I love the drugs that you gave someone the knowledge and determination to discover, and the needles and IV’s that carry them through his body, I love the IV pump that goes off when he needs attention, I love this buzzer I can hold in my hand so the nurses can know when we need them, and the electricity that keeps them beeping and buzzing… I love whoever created radiation, I love the lady in admitting who sweetly and gently hands me the pen to sign all the paperwork, knowing I probably cannot make good on the promise to pay anytime soon, I love Dr. Jenkins and how gentle he is while giving even the most horrific news, (I can almost see his heart breaking when he talks to us. God be with him each day) .. I love the cleaning lady who always has a smile even when I am crabby because I haven’t had any sleep all night and she needed to turn on the light... but then she fluffs my pillow on the back of my chair and says “try to get some sleep yourself, little mama” because she understands that a kind word…and a clean floor can do as much good as any drug sometimes…God, help me to remember to say “thank you” to her….And, you know what God?? I even love that old coke and candy machine that says I still need a quarter to make my dreams of a Payday bar and a Dr. Pepper come true…..God, I hate cancer….but I love You more…..

Adam's Story...Be The Match

On April 5^, 1989 Adam was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia), he was 6 years old.  He was in remission for over 5 years, but relapsed just before his 13th birthday.  This time the cancer returned stronger than ever and cells were found in his brain and spine. His only hope was a bone marrow transplant.  We waited anxiously for the test results of all the family members to come back and were thrilled to find out his 16 year old brother Jeremy was a perfect,  “ 6 out of 6 “ match.  We were referred to Duke University in North Carolina for the transplant and left on the 4^th of July.

The children’s bone marrow unit at Duke University in 1995 had the capacity for only 7 children. There were 7 boys there that summer, Adam, a 17 year old, a 16 year old, an 11 year old, a 2 year old, a 9 year old, and a 3 year old.  Out of those 7 children, only 2 had sibling matches, and 1 had a suitable stem cell transplant match. Only those three survived.  There is no way to describe the pain of watching those families lose their children. But Brian, the 9 year old, whose room was next to Adam’s room, made a particular impact on us.  Adam and Brian would play video games through the glass windows when they had a good day. Brain did not have a donor match and they had given him a 3 out of 6 match as a last attempt to save his life. In the weeks that followed, graft vs. host disease and a fungal infection took over little Brian’s body. In his last days, he ask his mom and dad to renew their wedding vows in his room, sensing as most children do, that this type of illness takes a toll on marriages. He asked the nurses to sing his favorite song, “You Are My Sunshine”. As we sat up each night with his grandparents and parents, they would ask, “Why is Brian holding on? The doctors say there is no reason he should still be alive. There must be something he still needs to do or say.”

One early morning, Brian told everyone, “I just want to go outside.  I want to feel the sun and the wind on my face.”  So they took Brian outside to the playground and let him sit in the sun and enjoy the wind. An hour later, Brian was gone.  He was the 4^th child we had seen die on the unit that summer.  Our lives have never been the same.

Adam had a perfect bone marrow match. He recently graduated from Full Sail University, valedictorian of his class and now works in film writing and production. He lives close to his brother, Jeremy, who gave him life the second time.  But there are 4 special families we met the summer of ’95 who will never see their children’s dreams come true. No graduations, no weddings, no celebrations.  You could be one to save a life. BE THE MATCH.  If you have any questions concerning being a bone marrow donor. Please feel free to contact me or my sons.

Praying For Rain

Now, hang in here with me. This is gonna be a long one, but I just know ya’ll don’t have anything better to do with your time than listen to the mindless ramblings of a crazy woman, so here we go… Well, it all started with me praying for rain…..

And how many times have we all been reminded when we pray, we should be “specific”? Well.. I wasn’t…I just prayed for rain, I didn’t say where or when and I didn’t EVEN mention my maters.  So what do you think happened? That’s right, I got some rain today. 

Now… I told ya’ll that to tell you this…

Somewhere between Niceville and Mossy Head, God decided to answer my prayer and it began to sprinkle. And you know how you have that couple of seconds of indecision where you pause and think … “Should I turn on the wipers yet or not?” Well, I was debating that in my mind and talking it over with myself… when all of a sudden…my windshield wipers…TURNED THEMSELVES ON!!!  Ain’t that something?  They just turned themselves on like they could sense the rain  AND that I couldn’t make up my mind.  You could have knocked me over with a feather  if I had been standin’ up!  And THEN…the bottom fell out of the sky and the rain poured down!

 Now some of you may have one of these smarty pants cars that will turn the  windshield wipers on all  by itself…but I have never seen such!  I was IMPRESSED. ( I would have been MORE impressed if they had reached out with some buckets and caught some of that rain for me to bring home for my maters AND if this car wants to REALLY impress me it will sense when I am tired and pull itself over, let the seat back  and tell me to take a nap.) But still…pretty impressive.   Since I know you will all want to read this story to your little ones tonight before bedtime, I’m gonna give you the moral of the story…and here it is…

Whether God  just  answered my prayer for rain and threw in the windshield wiper trick as a little something extra.. OR…. if He just gave a human being somewhere at some time,  the knowledge to make them do that mechanically…I experienced a MIRACLE  today!   So… to God be the Glory!