Saturday, September 25, 2010

Cancer Moms

I belong to a special group of women
My friends and I have an amazing bond.
We never wanted to be in this group,
Yet we are in, for life.
Maybe we have met, maybe we haven’t,
Yet our love for each other is boundless.
We know the pain the other one feels,
And we share our victories small or huge.
Words like chemo, IV, Zofran , bald heads
Are always parts of our conversations,
As well as roidrage, tears, and meltdowns…
We always know where the closest puke bucket is ,
We can hold it in one hand and if necessary,
Swallow the sandwich the other hand was holding.
We can drive to the hospital ,
Park in the dark parking garage
Make our way thru the halls of the hospital
And to the appropriate floor,
Settle in a room, turn the TV on,
Give instructions to the head nurse,
Silence loud beeping IV pumps,
Direct a wagon AND an IV pole
To the playroom without hitting anything.
Make our way back to the correct room.
And all this, mind you,
With our eyes closed at any given time.
We know how to draw blood from lines
Sticking out of our kids' chests.
We can hold them down with one hand,
While a nasogastric tube is inserted in their little nose,
And be on the phone with their dads at the same time.
We can live for days on hospital food,
And on maybe only one meal a day .
We know the names of up to 20 different drugs,
Their purpose, dosage and time to be taken.
We are always on call, 24 hours a day ,
Seven days a week.
We are used to not always looking our best,
Hard to do with only a few hours of sleep.
Make up , hair styling, skirts are words of the past .
We have become addicted to texting ,
hospital, clinic, home, wherever…
We talk sometimes at all hours of the night ,
We know we can count on someone to be up.
Then for one of us, the world stops .
She has to walk away, broken.
The job is over, but the fight is on.
Remember, I said we were in this forever.
We are friends, sisters, temporary nurses,
We are each others rock, each others punching bag,
We listen, we vent, we cry, we laugh together .
We share our lives and our deaths
We share our pain and our victories.
We are strong, but not by choice ,
Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose,
But never are we defeated.
We are not nurses.
We are not doctors.
We are cancer moms…


I wanted to post this again, as a reminder to all. We belong to this special group for the rest of our lives. None of want, or chose, to be part of this group, but we are all glad that we are there for each other. I love all my fellow 'cancer moms.' They are my family!

As September is drawing to a close, I already see a LOT of pink out there. Where is the GOLD? I would like to say it is crowded out by the pink; but I just never saw the GOLD. We talked to people about what September is, and they were clueless!!! Very sad. Maybe someday the GOLD will evoke as much passion as the pink; I pray it does. The children are our future!! We let them all die, or suffer long-term effects of cancer, and we won't have to worry about adults getting cancer~~~there won't be enough!! *sigh*

I guess I am not in a real good mood today. We had to watch our next-door neighbors walk away from their house yesterday. Not by choice, they were foreclosed on. Breaks my heart. They are in their mid-seventies (I think), and the sweetest people. It is just so sad. We have lived next to them the whole 10 years we have been here!! We are really going to miss him. We will keep in touch, but it just won't be the same. Please pray for Jack and Marsha as they try to start over, especially at their age. Thanks.

I don't know how McKenna is doing at this point. I just pray that she is staying as 'healthy' as possible. I pray her biological mother is not taking her to any more hospitals (worst place ever) or casino restaurants. To answer some of you, her website is www.caringbridge.org/visit/mckennamitchell. She is a beautiful child. Please pray that she is healthy enough to start her next round of chemo on the 28th. Thank you so much.

Thank you for visiting and checking up on David. Have a good weekend. God bless you all. We love you. {{hugs}}

Kristi and the Koury Klan

Whether their children are in remission, cured, or still in treatment, parents of kids with cancer never really relax. Your mind tells you if it happened once, it could happen again.