June 29 1992 - February 16 2009

Welcome to the Journey of a Butterfly

Welcome to Ashleys Journey,

We invite you to follow along one family's journey through grief and loss, one brave young girl's journey through faith and inspiration, this is not a blog to convert anyone , nor is it a blog about fundraising , it is what i hope will reach another family on a similar journey, we are not experts , i could not give you a magic remedy for how one gets through disease and devestation but it is our story , sometimes gut wrenching other time heartwarming and all of the time, i guarantee, very real. We are not perfect, we struggle daily and i think that the more we connect to one another the more we understand what this journey through life is all about . Sometimes that path is bumpy and we fall down, sometimes we sit and stop a while,or take a step back and other times we pound our fists on the pavement like a lunatic , still other times we find ourselves picking eachother up dusting eachother off and walking alongside them even if only for short time. This blog is dedicated to Ashley , her sisters and every single angel that picked us up along this road.
This is an introduction to the beginning and middle part of our journey the specific blogs are more indepth , the end...well there will never be an end to this journey i've come to realize that , not on this earth, for now we just assimilate it into our life like a hole , a missing limb, a continous ache that you just learn to live with.
When Ashley was about 12 years old she asked if she could go to youth group at a local church , i didn't have any church upbringing but know i craved it throughout my life , this was a rare opportunity and i recognized that if i didn't embrace it now she may lose her interst in it very quickly and beocme a jaded, cynical, stubborn person like her mom. My husband grew up in a very religious (shove it down your throat) kinda religion( i wont mention any names)or maybe it was the way he was raised ? Anyways i encouraged her to go because the community we had moved to embraced this kinda thing so i thought why not? Naturally and shortly after she started attending she was soon encouraging us to go , she had made quite a leadership name for herself there , pionner leader , sunday school helper etc, i was comfortable for the first time in my life going to a church, maybe it was the first word that greeted you as you walked in..."belong" maybe it was because they embraced community and outreach service in our city , dont know, but soon found it very therapeutic, cheaper than a shrink, and our other 3 girls jumped on board pretty quickly, my husband well... a work in progress , he communes with God in a fishing boat he says , although makes many efforts to go even if just for good way to start the week, i was still cynical , felt i wasnt holy enough but went anyways.
Ashley was scheduled to sing a solo in the church choir Dec 16 2007 , i was scared for her, i was sure she got her singing skills from me which was nil at best. She sang beautifully and you couldnt tell she had been complaining of cramps , something i chalked up to girls stuff/growing pains for a couple weeks off and on, she was an active healthy girl. When the performnce was done we got our christmas tree and i took her to the clinic to have it checked out before Christmas , they sent us to our local hosptial for tests , i was worried it was appendix. Darcy, my husband left the hosptial to go pick up our other 3 girls from friends houses , i caught the doctor in the ahallways and asked if the ulstrasound pictures were back, i remember having eye contact with Ashley only feet away from me but far enough away for her not to hear the doctor to so impassionaltely say "its not appendix, it looks like cancer", i have to stop as i write this because it is still one of the 2 biggest shocks in my entire life, i think i ran down the hallways screaming with no sound coming from my throat and not knowing where i was running . I phoned Darcy and words didnt come out of my mouth. Before I knew it we were at out local Childrens Hospital(100km away) meeting oncologiosts , being give an "oncology team" which consisted of a primary nurse, a social worker, a main oncologist and a shrink....wait a minute ...what is an oncologist? yep, a cancer doctor, this was the real thing . we waited 4 days to find out what type we were dealing with ... it was curable 90 % even though she was stage 4 , how the hell can my kid have stage 4 cancer and only a few cramps , it was mind bending. We were thrown stright into a world so foriegn to us , everything stopped ..jobs ..PAC meetings ,carppoling and yes even some friends who"couldn't handle it" it was no longer our own beds , our own home, our own anything. Treatments and life became unbearable , the 90% cure rate was not looking good at any stage throughout our journey , it seemd to be always full of negative news to the point where i couldnt stand the face of her oncologist , it nearly made me want to vomit everytime i saw him...The words they briefed us on as we began this mind altering path was " one of you will grieve through this process and no matter the out come the other will grieve after " they couldn't have been more right.......Ashley insisted on going to church on Christmas eve, two nights before she was to start chemo at the end of the service our pastor came to pray with us , i didn't know many people in the church , but wow did they know Ashley, when we rose our heads from bowing in prayer the whole congregation was surrounding us , i knew at that moment who i was going to need to get me through this ...would he be willing to listen to me...

Thursday, December 21, 2017

10 Years

10 years
It’s bleak outside today , especially bleak because i’m looking out at the ocean and the ferry is particularly crowded , i’m boxed in listening to some 30 somethings having a pissing contest on who has the best-est newest greatest thing, gadget, kitchen , kids etc. i’m feeling a bit trapped and my only option seems to be to stand out on the deck and just soak up the rain , enjoy the solitude yet i know i would just cry to myself and wonder how it is possible that 10 years ago i was in an ambulance heading for Children hospital bewildered and gobsmacked at how i could possibly be here only half knowing what our fate held (diagnosis confirmation day) . I may have been like one of those 30 somethings ( ok 40 somethings ) 10 years ago , how i would have disliked her now, how vanilla my life was, how surface and pleasantnville i could have been and how i would have chosen to stay “her” i guess... not saying i’m any better of a person , i’m just a bit more of a contradiction then i was before , i just have more information now , i know the truly yucky parts of myself , my faith , my marriage, a marriage and a faith that has been tested to the brink and while it doesn't follow recognizable paths anymore it is a newly carved , newly defined marking of a trail. We dance a new dance now and are learning not to step on each others feet , we’re getting there ... this world is a tough place to be for so many , i wonder if it’s been tough in some way for these 30 something next to me , maybe they’re really good at puttin on a facade , maybe it’s gonna sneak up on them one rainy normal December day. Life is a head shaker , you wonder how some people go through so much S#$% and others, no better , no worse, seem to skate by. It’s cruel out there lately , a child that lived through war-torn Syria fleas to a safe country and gets hit by a bus in first world country , wth? an officer murdered over a stolen car , children fighting cancer for the 2nd 3rd forth time and some don’t make it at all. C’mon tell me where the playing field is even . I know now that sunshine and rain come from the same sky and it all depends where on earth you happen to be walking .
Grief is a member of our family, it has to have a place, it gives us something to take care of , it’s a suitcase we carry around with us , one of those well worn suitcases from along ago , with stickers on it that tell the world where you’ve been , I’m not a world traveler but some days it feels like my suitcase has been all over the world and back , sometimes the thing pops open and everything comes spilling out , it can be uncomfortable and embarrassing and i have to gather up the belongings very quickly and stuff em back inside , it is hard work , it’s not like a hard job or a hard course it’s like physically carrying heaviness with you every where you go and at the end of the night you can only just lie it bedside for a few hours , wake up the next morning , thank God for another day and pick it back up and peek inside of it once in awhile just so you can touch the fragile things inside again. Some years go by and maybe you can remove a few things , lighten it up a bit , but never too much , you hate it and want it at the same time
10 Years later and lives have changed , it’s all i can say , that its’ “changed” some things are harder . some things are just clearer . People have come and gone from our lives and that’s ok , i have a few more phobias, quirks , wrinkles and cortizol and worry free parenting has never been restored ( just ask my kids) I have way more patience in some areas and wayyyy less in others. I teeter between being stoic and bawling my eyes out from moment to moment (k, maybe that’s hormones) This is not your typical sunny Christmas form letter , we are not full circle , i’m not sure that exists in this ,but i pray our kids are settled , confident beings and continue to be a little more aware of the world around them , ( judging by their career paths i think they are) that our marriage continues to know it can withstand the fire and that faith remains the foundation in it all ...and if that’s all i was able to accomplish in 10 years then that is enough.

Much peace ...10 years post dx
Lori
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