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On June 1, 2010 our two year old, "Little Air Bear," was diagnosed with Childhood Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Type M7. After enduring 146 days at Primary Children's Hospital, Erin is now in remission and living a full life at home with our family. Her strong will and constant happy smile is an inspiration to us all. Through our difficult circumstances we found great strength and peace in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you for checking in on us.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Cancer Moms

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.

(Rachel and I - AML mothers)

We know how to draw blood from lines
Sticking out of little 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.

(Lizzie and I - AML mothers)

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.
This job is over .
The job is over, but the fight is on.
Remember, I said we were in this forever.

(Marie and I - AML mothers)

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…

(author unknown)

3 comments:

  1. Can't say I've put in an NG tube while talking on the phone yet, but who knows :D. Great poem, but man! I can't imagine even the remote possibility that we won't all make it. So hard to think about! All three of us with 6 month olds are in remission, so who knows?

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  2. We all need to be understood and supported. I am so grateful for those who have given you the strength and understanding to make it through the last year. Love and hugs.

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