Tag: hope

I heart Pamela White

Today was busy. I spent most of the day prepping for our Channel 12 news interview. Mama, ready. Boys ready. House ready. Check, check, check. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to things like this. It was surprisingly very laid back. Woody and I sat at our dining room table and Ann, the interviewer, asked us questions about Ronan and our situation. I held it together as much as I could and put on my bravest face. We kept it very positive and to the point. I think I did at one point catch myself saying how this is every parents worst nightmare. What can I say, I wear my heart on my sleeve. It is and everybody should know that. Nobody, as a parent wants to go what we are going through. Woody did most of the talking… the Mr. Attorney came out and it was a good thing. What can I say, the man has a way with words… it’s what he does for a living. Lin Sue Cooney is going to go over it, edit things, and will let us know when it will air. Any exposure we can get is good exposure. We truly belive in the power of prayers and positive thinking. It just has to work<3 Life cannot be just so black and white.

After the interview Woody left and went back to the office. Ronan was tired and fell asleep in my arms for a little bit. When he woke up, he was in one of his moods. He ran to my room for no reason, started slamming the door and screaming at the top of his lungs. I let him scream things out for about 15 minutes and then I sat down in front of the door and tried to talk to him. He kept telling me he hated me and I was mean. I sat there and let him yell at me while trying to rationalize with him. Then the hitting started. I let him hit me and get his frustration out. I sat on the ground and cried the entire time. After about 10 minutes of this, he crawled in my lap and cried with me. Quinn saw everything, and came and held my hand and kept telling me everything was o.k. That may have been the lowest point of my life thus this far. Today, I watched my 7-year-old become a man because mommy was too sad to pull it together and be strong. I felt proud and sad all at the same time. Proud because  I am watching Quinn grow up, and I know what an amazing adult he is going to be. Sad because no 7-year-old should have to witness their mom crying so hard that she can’t stop or get up off of the floor. Quinn, Ronan and I sat on the ground for a good 20 minutes and held each other and I finally was able to stop crying. Liam was off playing with my iPad and had no idea what was going on. Sometimes I wonder if he really gets it, but chooses to ignore it all. Maybe it’s his way of coping with all of this. That boy is too smart not to understand what is going on. I’m content to let him just be. He seems to be doing the best out of everyone. Woody came home after that and I got a break and went out to dinner with my new friend, Pamela White.

Dinner with her could not have come at a better time. I really needed some time out and Pam could not have been a better date. Her little girl, Victoria, had cancer when she was 3. So Pam has been through everything I am going through and feeling. She has such wisdom and compassion and is very comforting to me. She also cracks me up, which as you know, is one of my favorite qualities in a person. Victoria is beautiful, healthy, and a survivor. Ronan is going to follow in her footsteps. Tonight, with tears in her eyes, my beautiful new friend pulled out something from her purse for me. It is a bracelet that was given to her by a friend right when Victoria was diagnosed. Pam wore it everyday up until Victoria had the port taken out of her chest. Pam gave it to me tonight and I will wear it everyday until Ronan is healed. It was one of the most thoughtful and meaningful things that somebody has ever done for me. I will wear this and think of Victoria and her amazing family everyday. It will give me the strength and courage that I need to get through this.

I came home to all of the boys asleep and Woody playing some new PS3 game with his headset on and his friends online playing with him. I love to see him doing things that he used to do and just letting everything go. It is good for him to be able to decompress and unwind. Ronan is sound asleep in my bed and I am going to snuggle up to him for the night. It is my most favorite time of day. There is nothing sweeter than cuddling with my baby boy.

Clinic Day

Ronan and I went off to the clinic this morning to do his usual Monday checks of his blood and platelet levels. Poor little guy is having bad tummy aches from the chemo last week. A lot of diarrhea and him saying his tummy hurts. I talked to “A” about this and she said it is a normal side effect from the chemo and to just watch him. She expects it to last most of the week. If it goes into next week, then we will have to do something about it. As for now, we just have to make sure he is staying hydrated. His counts are dropping, but still look o.k. We will expect them to continue to bottom out until the end of the week, then hopefully they will start to come back up. After the clinic, we went upstairs to meet with Dr. Jan who is one of the psychiatrists at the hospital. We only got to meet with her for about 10 minutes due to Ronan’s tummy hurting and him not wanting to be there. She is trying to help me work on some boundaries with Ronan.

We are still waiting to hear the finalized dates for New York. We should know in the next couple of days. It is going to be here before we know it. I am trying to mentally prepare for everything. As long as I have all my ducks in a row here, I should be fine.

Today, I spoke with Lin Sue Cooney from Channel 12 news. She has been playing phone tag with Woody since last week. They want to do a story on Ronan and our family and asked if they could come to our house to shoot tomorrow early evening. It was very last minute, but I am not going to turn down that opportunity. I will let you all know when it is going to air when I find out. I am assuming they will have to edit, etc…. Either way, I am honored. Channel 12 is the only local news channel I watch. Watch out world, this is just the beginning! Little Ronan is going to bring so much light and hope to this disease…. he will be the poster child for it. We have to find a cure. Everyday I hear of more and more babies not surviving. It is gut wrenching to read about and rips me to pieces. I try to stay away from stories like that, but it’s like a bad car accident…. sometimes you just have to look. As much as I try not to, it is a horrific reality check for me and keeps me focused on what we need to do to keep Ronan kicking cancer’s ass.

Tonight we played a lot of baseball outside. Ro has been running around like mad. There is no stopping my little guy. He runs circles around his 7-year-old brothers. I’ve never in my life seen a child like him before. He is so strong willed and determined. I dream about the day that he can just be carefree and happy and not have to live the life of going back and fourth to and from the hospital.

My sweet friend, Jules, brought over dinner tonight and it is always a treat to see her. We tried to catch up for a bit but it was busy around here with homework being done and Ronan wanting attention. We sat and ate dinner as a family, watched a little football, and Ronan fell asleep around 8:30. He didn’t nap today so he was tired tonight. After he fell asleep, I ran to the grocery store so I actually have food in my house. Ronan has been quite upset that there has been a lack of string cheese around here. We are all stocked up for a while. It’s amazing how much food 3 little guys go through. I seriously need to buy stock in Gatorade.

My friend, Gay, is coming over tomorrow to help me get ready for our channel 12 news story. She is going to help me put away all of our Halloween decorations and things like that. That women is a force to be reckoned with. I am SO lucky to have her as a friend. I hope someday after all of this is over to take a big trip with my very special girls to celebrate them and all they have done for me. A girls trip will definitely be in order and way overdue. We have so many plans for when we are done and over with this bullshit. So much of it is just going to consist of being together as much as possible and enjoying every little second of being healthy and free. Our lives will forever be changed, but we are going to change them for the better. This won’t get the best of our family<3 Nobody can take that away from us.

Last Friday night I went down to my beautiful friend and neighbor, Niki’s for a few cocktails and girl time. Tricia and Jen joined us too and I cannot tell you how good it felt to just be with them. We sat, talked, laughed, cried, and laughed some more. I swear this is the first time I have really laughed in months.  And I mean, laughed so hard that you can’t breathe and your stomach aches and hurts. It felt so good to feel something other than pain. I know I am surrounded by amazing friends when they can get me to feel that way and to just let everything go, even if it is just for a few hours. To my Niki, Tricia,and Jen…. thank you for being the beautiful souls that you are and the sisters I was meant to have. You have no idea how much that night meant to me. The only thing missing was our Lindsey and Marisa. ❤ ❤ I thought about them the whole night though and it felt like they were there in spirit. I love you all.

To all of you keeping up with Ronan and this blog, I think about you everyday and I am so thankful that you are touched by his story. It is going to be a long journey but it is going to be worth the ride. Sweet dreams, friends. Be thankful for what you have, who you are, and all the blessings you have in your life. You never know when something could take it all away<3<3 I pray that none of you ever have to experience what we are going through… we will walk this walk for you and hope you take the lessons along the way. 

The happiest day of my new life

I got a phone call from Dr. Maze today re: Ronan’s scan results. He told me as much as he could, which was so nice of him to do. Waiting is the hardest part and he instantly put me at ease with his news. Woody heard from Dr. Eshun around 5:00. We have some very good news to share tonight. 2 weeks ago we were told to expect the mass in Ronan’s abdomen to shrink around 20-25 percent, but not much more than that. Dr. Eshun told us tonight that the mass has actually shrunk 47%. That is huge news for us! We could not be happier with those results. It is still in his bone marrow, and there are a couple of other areas they are going to watch… but nothing else has progressed or started to grow, so Dr. Eshun is very pleased with what he is seeing. I fell to the floor after hearing this news… and cried like a baby. All I could think about was how I knew Ronan would fight this as hard as he possibly could. He is proving it by the results we are seeing and how well he is handling everything. He is so unbelievably strong. He is fighting so hard for us all of us, because he loves us all so much.Today has been such a happy day for our family, a day full of hope and a big sigh of relief. We still have a long road ahead of us, but today was a victory for us. Tonight, we will sleep a little better and dream a little sweeter. We are so full of hope and joy and are going to continue to love Ronan so deeply and so much that it kills all of his cancer. We are doing everything we can to surround him with positive energy, laughter, and love. We will continue with his treatment plan and pray that we continue to see amazing results.

I had lunch today with 3 lovely ladies. I finally had the chance to meet another mom, Lara, her son was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma and he is now 10 years old. They live here and are very involved in raising money to fund less toxic treatments for this disease and to find a cure. I cannot tell you how much meeting her meant to me. Her son, Noah, is alive, healthy, and is so full of love for life. He beat all of the odds and is living proof that miracles do happen. Lara gave me a lot of great advice and seeing her courage and strength was so very inspiring. I can’t wait to meet Noah someday and introduce Ronan to him.

I  also saw a therapist today. I knew within 15 minutes of our session that she was the one. Intelligent, compassionate, and we meshed well. She gets it. You want to know how I really knew she was the one for me?? She asked me about Ronan’s cancer, she asked me to tell her what his treatment plan entailed. I went through the list of 5 rounds of chemo, surgery, another round of chemo, stem cell transplant (maybe 2), Radiation, and the last blast of antibodies. She looked at me and goes, “Does cussing offend you?” I go, ” No, quite the opposite.” And she goes, “Good. Holy shit.” Ahhhhh, a woman after my own heart! I loved that she was so raw and blunt. I don’t need any sissy pants, sugar-coating, therapist. I need someone who understands that this is one of the worst possible things to happen to a parent and who can look me in the eye and tell me it’s bullshit, but she can figure out how to get me through it, so I don’t have to check myself into a loony bin. This lady is going to be that person for me, I can already tell. I feel better than I have in a very long time. I can see little pieces here and there of our old life coming back. It’s like there are little flickering pieces of glitter floating through the air and every once in a while I’ll catch one. I caught one yesterday when I spent a few hours with Woody. We went furniture shopping and to lunch. I can’t tell you how important those few hours were with him. I allowed myself to forget about Ronan’s cancer for a while and just enjoyed spending some time with my husband. It was a beautiful day spent with a beautiful man.

I just want to tell each and every one of you who are reading this blog, following Ronan’s journey, praying and thinking about us, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will say this over and over again until the day I die… I know he feels your love and I know all of the love, prayers, and positive energy are working. There is only so much medicine can do, so please continue to do whatever you are doing for him:)

Scans are done… now we wait

We are home finally from our long evening of scans. Ronan started at 4:30 this evening and was not finished until about 8:00 tonight. Dr. Maze was there, as always, to give Ronan his anesthesia. He stayed the entire time, even though I was told that he would more than likely not be there when Ronan woke up. He was, and that meant the world to us. He is truly a doctor that goes above and beyond. The world would be such a better place with more people like him in it. He takes the time to go over everything with us… to make sure we are being taken care of, listens to our question and concerns and to give us advice. We will forever be grateful for him. He has made a huge difference in this experience for us. Ronan trusts him and truly loves him. He is only really like this with Dr. Maze and our wonderful nurse, Sharon. Those are the two people Ronan trusts the most… and those are the two people I trust the most. It makes a big difference when you can look into the eyes of the person who is taking care of your child and see that they truly have a passion and love for what they are doing. I see it every time I look into the eyes of the both of them. It brings me a lot of comfort and somehow makes me feel like everything is going to be alright.

Ronan woke up really grumpy from the anesthesia. He got a little sick to his stomach and slept the entire ride home. He is asleep now and I am hoping he stays that way for the rest of the night. Poor baby. He had a hard day and spent the better part of it being upset that we were at the hospital and not at home. It’s days like today that I feel so heartbroken for him. I just want him better and healthy so he can go back to his life before all of this. I did my best and was strong for him all day long… I spent the entire time at the hospital talking him through everything and trying to distract him. He just wanted to be home with his brothers. I don’t blame him; I did too.

I got to spend some time with Tricia and Marisa tonight. They both came to the hospital so I wouldn’t have to wait alone. It was nice to sit and laugh with them. They know when I need a good distraction and waiting for Ro to come out of anesthesia is always hard for me. Thanks girls for sitting with me tonight and thanks Marisa for checking my blood sugar levels;)

This weekend we are going to lay low and enjoy our family time together. Ronan will start round 3 of his “Magic Medicine” on Monday and I just found out that we will have to be admitted into the hospital for his treatment. The dose is stronger so they will need to monitor him all week. Not excited about that but like always, we will make the best of the situation.

We should hear back about Ronan’s scans some time tomorrow. Praying for good news and praying hard. Sweet dreams my friends.