A Big Idea From Lemons

I use Facebook a lot.
I like to read what's going on in my friends' lives.
I like seeing pictures of people's kids, pets, vacations.
I also like seeing what others are doing for the world of childhood cancer.
Fundraisers, magical gifts given to sick children, celebrity endorsers.
But it's the parents of children who have gone through the horrors of cancer who are the real go-getters.

Parents who have waited in the other room while their child receives radiation to their brain or spine.

Parents who watch their child become transformed by medications.

Medications that are simultaneously killing them and curing them.

Parents who lose sleep over the fact that this life their child is living is NOT the life they had envisioned for them.

I am one of those parents.

And it was on Facebook that I saw that another state in the U.S. had a license plate that it's citizens could purchase to raise money for childhood cancer research.

This license plate had raised MILLIONS of dollars for the cause.
I looked at the Illinois Secretary of State website.
There are license plates for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, autism, baseball teams, college teams, environmental plates and pet license plates.
But nothing to help raise funds for childhood cancer.
A group of diseases ranging from leukemia to brain tumors.
A group of diseases that kills more children than any other disease.
More than diabetes, pediatric AIDS, asthma, and cystic fibrosis combined.
The questions started rapidly popping up in my head...
Why don't we have a childhood cancer license plate in Illinois to raise funds for research?
Who can I ask about this?
Who do I know that would know what to do?
The answer appeared in my high school Junior Homecoming date and long time friend Mark.
The guy who brought my daughter a cooler full of snow to play with in her hospital room when she was fighting against cancer during a blizzard.

He's involved in politics in Springfield.

I asked him how I would go about doing this license plate thing.
He quickly replied with "I'm on it."

Since that day that I saw a Facebook post about another state's childhood cancer license plate my daughter and I have had the opportunity to meet Illinois State Senators, Illinois House Representatives, and the Governor himself.

We have been given a chance to give back to the science and doctors who have made it possible for our daughter to be in remission.

To give us hope for her future and for all children with cancer.

We wish we had never been put into this situation.

We wish our daughter hadn't been diagnosed with leukemia.

But she was.

And she's still here.

And we are trying to do great things with this sack of lemons she was given.

When life gives you lemons, you can make the most amazing lemonade around.

Viva Las Vegas

Part one in the series "Music Mondays in May" for my blog group Homesteaders & Homeschoolers.

Music has always been a big part of my life.
My father is one of those young dads.
He was twenty when I was born in 1971.
Because of his young age, my young life was submerged in the music that he loved.
One of those music loves was Elvis Presley.
My mom's sister, Jeanne, was a huge Elvis fan as well.
She even saw him live in concert not too long before he died.
Something I was always jealous of...come on, ELVIS! She saw THE Elvis!

In college my group of girlfriends were huge Elvis fans as well.
We knew the words to all of his songs and weren't afraid to belt them out at large decibels from our house on 916 Hovey Ave.
Graceland has been visited by all of us.
Las Vegas has been a travel destination for many of us since it's the land of Elvis Impersonators.
It's always fun to ride in an elevator next to a guy with huge sideburns and extra wide, dark sunglasses while trying not to snicker because Elvis is standing next to you.

I met Chad in the Fall of 1999.
We had a quick courtship and knew we wanted to do something out of the ordinary for our wedding.
We didn't have a lot of money so we knew we wanted to combine our wedding with a honeymoon.
A two for one deal.
Las Vegas sounded like the right place for us.
And when you think of Las Vegas and weddings you usually also think of Elvis.
It was decided.
We would get married in July in Vegas by Elvis.

Why we decided on July is beyond me.
Wait, I do remember...
my mom kept telling me "this date and that date won't work for me because of work."
Sigh...
So, the middle of July in the desert it would be.
I later remember declarations of "MY EYES ARE BURNING OUT OF MY HEAD!" from wedding guests because of the intense heat of the day.
Don't get married in the desert in July people.

This being the era before smart phones, we had to use a fax machine to get copies of restaurant menus from various places in Vegas for our "after the ceremony dinner."
We called and emailed a few different Elvis wedding places.
We picked the right place.
It was off of the strip and seemed like a real genuine place.
It was family owned and as I sit here and write this, I know we picked the very best spot.

Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel was where our wedding was held.
Thirty members of our family and friends made the trip to Las Vegas to be with us on our big day.
My niece was five years old at the time and since I wasn't going to have a flower girl, she instead became the camera girl.
She was in charge of handing out disposable cameras to each guest...remember this was before smart phones.
My girlfriend Tina stood up with me and Chad's brother Chris stood by his side.
I wore a black dress, 'cause I'm unconventional like that, and Chad wore shorts.
Elvis was great! (Elvis was the owner, Ron, and a super great guy.)
He sang three or four songs ( I forget the exact number now since it went down in 2000 and the heat of that day melted some of my brain away.)
He ended the ceremony with Viva Las Vegas and had the arm swings, lip curl, and leg lunges to go with it.
His white sequin suit filled the room with sparkles and was only overshadowed by the large amount of laughing, singing, and cheering by our guests.

It was a fantastic day and the start to a great journey with my hubbie Chad.

My best friend.
My source of support in what has become a difficult journey in our days as parents.
He makes me laugh and doesn't care when I fart in bed.
Well, he may care about that.
But all I have to do is starting singing Viva Las Vegas and all is forgiven...

Read more "Music on Monday" from...
Carla
Melissa
Laura

Keeping Our Lives Upside Down

Part Two in a series from my Homesteaders & Homeschoolers group blog topic..."When and Why to Start a Family--Highlights and Lowlights"

We were only going to have one child.
It's easy to get around with just one child.
We could drive a small car.
Vacation would be that much cheaper.
Zoe was such a good kid.
No problems ever.
Then it happened.

I was so tired the spring of 2008.
I would tell Zoe (who was 3 years old) that mama was just going to close her eyes for a bit.
Two hours later I would wake up.
Remember, I said Zoe was a good kid.
She completely kept herself busy while I was zonked out on the couch.
Something felt "off" and I told Chad to pick up a pee stick for me on the way home from work.
Silence.
"Just do it!" I bellowed.

I peed on that stick, ate dinner, then went to check on the pee stick's status.
Sigh.
Positive.
I didn't want to be pregnant.
At all.
When did this conception even take place for gosh sakes?
Well, if I was going to be pregnant it had better all be for another girl.
Since I was over 35 years of age (another reason I didn't want to be pregnant) I had to go to a Maternal/Fetal Specialist.
The ultrasound tech that day was a man.
As was the doctor I saw.
Manness was ripe in the air that day.
They both declared that the fetus within my over 35 aged body was a male.
WHAT?!
I called Chad as I was leaving my appointment.
I paused on the skywalk when he answered.
"Thanks a lot."
He knew by those three words that there was a boy in my belly.
He knew that the sperm determines the sex of a fetus and he apologized.
Again and again.

I did come to terms with the fact that a wee penis was forming in my body.
I bought boy type clothing.
I bought boy type bedding.
We even discussed names and after some thought we decided our son would be named Oliver Ash and that he would grow up to be a MLB player.
I was good with things now.
I had conceded and had accepted that I would have a daughter and a son.
Zoe and Oli.
I had no morning sickness...again.
I received zero stretch marks...again.
It looked like a super-duper, extra-large pumpkin was stuffed under my shirt.
All was good.

Another planned c-section.
I was not going to do that VBAC crap (vaginal birth after cesarean) that the OB was pushing on me.
I had never felt a labor pain and was fine going to my grave having never felt one.
We picked the date of November 14th.
I had a real gung-ho doctor and she scheduled things bright and early.
So, Zoe went to grandma and grandpa's house for breakfast and Chad and I headed to the hospital to welcome our new son to the world.

So, as I'm strapped down in the crucifix position with painful gas bubbles rising up into my shoulders and a barf bucket next to me when it happened.
The baby was plucked from my uterus and the nurse standing behind me declared "that's not a boy."
Well then what in the hell was it?!
I'm supposed to be having a boy!
Was it really a cat this time?
Or was his hardware so mangled that he was going to need surgery to repair his stuff and he may look more like a mangled her?
The doctor then said "Nope that's a girl!"

After much explaining to my parents, the new big sister, relatives and friends whom Chad called, we were elated to have another daughter in our family.
We had to come up with a name quickly.
Oliver then became Gigi.
That's not short for anything, folks.
Just Gigi.

I'll never forget for as long as I live what my girlfriend Kelly told me later on..."I never knew anyone who could will away a penis like you did."
"If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen" was my response.
And I'm very thankful toward Chad's sperm.
I'm not mad at him anymore...

Check out my fellow Homesteaders & Homeschoolers "second in the series" blog stories on motherhood...
Laura @ Where Love Starts
Melissa @ Teach Academy
Carla @ Our Happy Chaos

Starting Life Upside Down

Part One in a series from my Homesteaders & Homeschoolers group blog topic..."When and Why to Start a Family"

Starting a family is something some girls dream about from childhood.
I was not one of those girls.
I didn't play with dolls.
During my early 20's I would emphatically state that I was NOT going to have kids.
I met my husband and we had a fast courtship (10 months).
After 5 years of hanging out with just him, traveling, enjoying each other's company, it happened.

I was in my early 30's and we were at Ravinia in Highland Park.
An outdoor music venue where you can sit on a blanket, drink beer, eat goat cheese and listen to Lyle Lovett, Elvis Costello, Peter Paul and Mary, or whoever happened to be making music that summer.
I don't remember who we were there to see, but I do remember what Chad said.
A young girl, probably 5 years old, ran by us on the sidewalk.
Chad said "isn't she cute?!"
And at that moment I knew that we needed to have a child.
And I hoped it would be a girl. 
We didn't have to try too hard.
We easily got pregnant (I now think I am one of those ladies that could get pregnant if my man looked at me and I wasn't on birth control.)
Pregnancy was easy, too.
I had an infatuation with Sour Tangerine Altoids.
I would eat them by the tin full.
I didn't get morning sickness (I think I barfed once or twice only at work, much to my co-worker Sarah's disgust!).
I didn't get stretch marks.
My skin looked FABULOUS!
The only issue occurred in the last trimester when Chad said I snored so loudly that he thought the neighbors were going to start complaining and he was forced to sleep in the other room.

Then about three weeks before my due date, I was told by the doctor that she thought this baby girl, still residing firmly up against both my lungs and my bladder, was upside down.
An external version was briefly talked about...briefly because once my OB started talking about trying to turn the baby around from the outside of my belly and that it had to be done in the hospital in case of trauma and they would need to get the baby out stat, I firmly said nope.
So a c-section was scheduled for February 11th.
Great.
Now I had to go back into my baby books and read about c-sections because I had skipped all of those chapters!
We arrived around 11:00 or noon and then proceeded to patiently wait until about 5:00 to go into surgery.
When you have a scheduled c-section you get bumped back when those ladies who are trying to vaginally deliver a baby suddenly can't.
So after the emergency c-sections were taken care of, it was our turn.  
I was getting super hungry since I hadn't eaten anything all day.
It was an easy procedure.
She came out kicking, really she did.
My doctor declared, "she just kicked me!" as she reached in to get her from my uterus.
I thought she sounded like a kitten mewing when she stared crying.
All I knew at that point was cats and dogs.
Now I had a person who sounded like a cat. 
I was beyond overwhelmed that a person had just been pulled out of my body.
And even more overwhelmed when we had to take her home and do this human rearing ourselves.

We named her Zoe.
Zoe is a Greek name that means LIFE.
And she is our life.

We have had to help save her life.

We have had to watch her little body and mind endure so much stress and trauma in this short life she's only begun to live.  

We can't wait to see what her life holds for her.

To be continued...

My interweb group of friends (Homesteaders & Homeschoolers) and I decided to do some posts together.
This month's theme (the rest of April anyway) is about our journey into motherhood.
Check out their stories, too.
Laura
Carla
Melissa

Doing It All

Days and weeks can go by now and everything seems ordinary.
The girls go to school.
Dinner together every night.
Zoe has a test on telling time on an old fashion clock with hands.
Dance and piano lessons.
The only thing that really makes Zoe seem different nowadays is her hair. Or lack thereof.
So, when we have days where childhood cancer, specifically Zoe's journey through leukemia, spills open in front of us we become exhausted.
Again.
There's my overwhelming desire to give back to those that have saved my daughter.
Ways to do that are sharing our story with everyone.
Her story.
Via pictures and news stories.
All to bring awareness to the affects of childhood cancer and what we can do to help ease the pain of treatments, to find cures.
I have no intention of exploiting my daughter and her disease.
Her struggles.
Her dreams.
But if people don't SEE things like a little girl without hair, a little girl that has had to endure chemo, a little girl who has had to overcome tremendous turmoil, a little girl who misses her friend who didn't survive cancer, they just don't care.
People are visual creatures.
Photos and words have impact.
And if we can give back somehow to the doctors and the medicine that have saved our baby, we will do that.
Zoe may not remember a lot of what life was like during the initial onset of her cancer.
But we are providing her with memories of what she has overcome.
We are providing her with memories of the good we are trying to do in this big bad world that has allowed her to get cancer.
Memories of amazing encounters with people we wouldn't meet if cancer hadn't entered her world.
Zoe met the Governor of Illinois.
And a State Senator.
When she was eight years old.
The Governor got down to her eye level and spoke to her about her braveness, her good heart, and her courage to help others.
A memory that will last forever.
We want her to have these impressions in the forefront of her mind.
Not always needles, nausea, surgery.
We are giving her hope for the good she can do in this world.
Because she can do it all...

Sometimes, Somehow

When I eat a bagel, without cutting it in half or toasting it or schmearing it, just eating an entire whole bagel (which is not the best food choice, I KNOW!) I get the hiccups immediately.
Every time.

I need to start photographing again.
Really taking good pictures.
There's a Pinterest post I've seen about taking "a picture a day" for a month with a different topic each day for inspiration. 
I might do that.

I have developed a recent addiction to Diet 7UP.

I love that my kids are interested in politics, go with me to vote, know about social issues like gay marriage and environmental concerns.
Knowledge and compassion start young and I don't think they are too young to care.
When is the right time to start caring?
It's their future.

I have told Willie that if he rolls in one more pile of crap, be it horse or whatever that was on Monday, that I will ring his scrawny freckled neck!

I love watching Top Chef, Downton Abbey, RuPaul's Drag Race, Call The Midwife and Good Luck Charlie.
In no particular order, but I tell you, that mom on GL Charlie is a real hoot and makes me constantly laugh out loud.
I wish we were friends.
Oh wait, she's not really real.
Damn.
I'm still waiting for Lorelai Gilmore to call me.


I would like to lose 20 pounds.
I think I need to stop eating those bagels.

I also need to do something with the two SD cards I have that are FULL of pictures.
I would like to just throw them all into a pre-made photo book and be done with them.
I don't need all of the captions.
Just the pictures off of the cards.
I like to look at the faces.
To see the past and memories they have made.
Words get in the way.

I wish I could spend every Sunday with my friend Sue.

I'm going easy on Christmas this year.
Just a few presents the girls really want.
We don't need to be swallowed up by a bunch of new crap.
We have each other and our laughter filling my house is enough.
It really is enough.

Joined For Life

What greater thing is there for human souls than

to feel that they are joined for life -

to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

~George Eliot

Believe in Magic

During childhood there are joys and tears, smiles and friends, amazement to behold and questions to find answers to.  When you are a child with cancer, all of these things erupt ten-fold to mean much more.  Things can't be taken for granted.  Good days can be pushed back and lost under the bed.  Bad moments and feelings can take hold and strangle you.  But the resilient child forges ahead.  Continues to believe that this will end...the needles, the malaise, the feeling of being and looking different.  Because she believes.  Believes in a happy tomorrow.  In the magic of Santa.  In herself and her parents to get her through the bad times.  And to come out on the other side with even more courage than ever thought possible. 

So, whatever Scroogey thoughts may enter your head during this holiday season, whether it's disgust of some stranger at the mall who's being rude or of a distanced relative, the pile of bills to be paid, try to remember to believe.  Believe that you can be a better person.  Believe in yourself wholeheartedly and that time is fleeting.  Believe in being happy and living for today.  Believe that their is magic everywhere, working it's wonders on your heart. 
       

There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter,

the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.

~Elizabeth Lawrence

Wishes

I'm a bit superstitious and wishful...

When I used to see a digital clock hit the time 11:11 I would make a wish.

I would wish for things beyond my control, usually for my kids to have good health.

I don't wish on 11:11 anymore.

I no longer wish upon stars and fuzzy dandelions that I blow on.

Other than knocking on wood when I speak of my kids and their health, I don't have the urge to wish for things close to me anymore.

But I have a list stuck in my head that I have a longing for, things that are but in a dream.  Some comic and some somber...

I wish more people understood the concept of good karma and of paying it forward...

I wish we still lived in Chicago, near the lake and near our friends... 

 

I wish the Occupiers nothing but triumph.  Everyone I know is part of the 99% and you are in a haze if you think you aren't or couldn't be there in a heartbeat...

I wish winter lasted only two months instead of the usual 5-6 that we get here... 

 

I wish more sunsets ended my day in a blast of orange and pink... 

I wish I didn't constantly misspell their and weird (spellcheck helped me on this)...  

I wish my mother had never made me wear these huge glasses... 

I wish I had a copy of White Boned Demon...

I wish my grandmothers could have met my daughters...

I wish Madison were still here...

I wish the greedy wouldn't get greedier because they are destroying the planet that we live on all for the sake of a dollar...

I wish someone would invent something that instantly destroyed the odor of cat poo

like BOOM  and it's gone!

I wish more people cared about the social injustice in this world and the diseases of innocent children robbing them of their futures instead of which of their shows on TV are getting cancelled...

I wish these two kids could have known what a boring and normal childhood felt like because now they will never know...