I don’t always know if I am doing enough in this world after my son’s cancer journey. Everywhere I turn there are people doing SO much, often I feel defeated. I am grieving, I am also still taking care of my oldest son, I am trying to rebuild a life from the brokenness we experienced, and also I have on my to-do list “cure cancer.” I feel like all of us have these little to-do lists with one big task on them that keeps the list, always continuing.
Honestly, curing cancer IS my big task, I know super daunting. Although, I know a lot of people with it on their to-do list so I feel like we have enough people to get the job done, why is it taking so long? The reason is, the very thing that keeps our world keep going. The thing that everyone wants, and everyone needs in order to get most of their tasks accomplished. We’re all looking for it anywhere we can get it and we all have a place that needs it the most in our lives. MONEY!
I once read an article about how there probably is a cure for cancer in this world already, but us shmucks who have little to no money, can’t get our hands on it. As I read it with my son lying next to me, dying, I became enraged and decided it best not to entertain that article any longer.
Truth is, there’s lots of things being said about cancer and the process of finding cures. I don’t know about all of them but what I do know is I have become friends with Hunters team of doctors and researches. If there was a cure that THEY knew about for Hunter, it would have been hooked up to his IV and started in a hot second. They loved him so much. I know they are desperately trying to find a cure for kids with brain tumors that will also give them the best possible shot at a life well lived.
You see, cancer treatment is so much more complex than we all think. The very treatment Hunter received, has been also known to kill children during the process. If you think we were ever confident and had any assurance sending him in to 30 sessions of radiation, you’re out of your mind. I had to pep talk myself thousands of times that we were doing what we could to save him. When we laid him on that bed for radiation every day, it would take everything in me not to scream and destroy every single piece of equipment in that room. NOTHING about Hunter’s treatment plan would give him the life he deserved.
But it was the only option. Seattle Children’s and Fred Hutch believe it’s time to find new options. I have sat with Hunter’s research team, I have listened to them and their plans for the future of pediatric brain tumors. I know of their desire for a cure, and our family stands with them 100%. I truly believe, Seattle is where Hunter’s cure can be born. I know it’s too late for him, but we dream of the day where at the run of hope we meet a sweet child with metastatic medulloblastoma, group 3, who has completed a treatment with little to no effect on their outside appearance or physical capabilities, and has been offered a remission for their rest of their life. I have to keep fighting for THAT child, who I don’t even know, but will have a special place in my heart.
We ask you to help us see that child in our life time.
Do you run? Neither do I. Do you walk? Or would you simply just come hang out with us and our brain tumor family? On September 23rd, our family, along with many other brain tumor families will be at Seward Park in Seattle to raise as much money as possible to fund research for pediatric brain tumors at Seattle Children’s Hospital. We ask that you sign up, and join us, or simply make a donation to Hunters page in his honor, for children who will fight a brain tumor.
This is our families current need. This is what we ask in our time of pain. Help us, help our team, change the world for kids diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Click the "run of hope" photo to be directed to Hunter's First Giving Page.
