commonground dec 11 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 11:10am | Edit Note | Delete
Hello Everyone ,
Thought i would take a moment and update everyone about recent activity in our home as it is quite confusing and hard to keep up with.
As some of you may know Ashley was fortunate enough to be able to start a new experimntal chemo regimen, well when i say lucky i use that term looslely , Ashley would probably hit me if she heard the word "lucky"Ashley started the first round NOv 7 th and was to recieve the second part of the first round one week later , we were hoping for a one day infusion but as you well know ashleys tolerance is quite low , due to nuisance complications she was in nearly a month with a few days off in between. She got out monday the 1st.
Ashley was lucky enough to enjoty a few days home visiting with her cousins who made a trip down from Lumby to cheer her up, She was still tired and low in energy but we all had a great time, it was a wonderful distraction and plenty of laughter.*
We came back this past Monday for an overnight 2nd round of chemo, why i tell myself "overnight" this far in the game is beyond me , i should be seasoned enough now to never "assume "anything...well you all know the addage on that one. Ashley develpoed a fever in the middle of the night and if memory serves me correctly thats an automatic 14 day antibiotic stay. So after 10 rounds of chemo countless infections and blah blah blah here we are a little numb , alittle seasoned , apparently sronger (however iwonder how having been bashed over the head so many times actually makes you stronger)maybe even a little cynical at times but still searching the "faith" thing and finding gratitude , and stumbling across commonalities everywhere.
Speaking of which, the other day i asked a friend, new to facebook, to join christys group"Ashley we love you" She assured me she did and when i checked i noticed her name wasnt on there, she told me the words she used in the search engine, looking closely i noticed it was "we love you ashley" so i clicked on to it and sure enough theres another similar group. I was curious so i read her bio and low and behold there is another girl named Ashley with a wonderful sister who started a medical support group for her sister. It appears that this girl... aka Ashley ..was in a very serious car accident and was clinging to life for a time , it appeared she was improving but reading her notes i realized she too had an aunt named Lisa and many friends and family and strangers who loved her and all said they would pray for her , i wondered what this girls life was like before tragedy struck , i'm sure she was alittle bit older than my Ash but still too young to have such trauma in her life. I wondered if she was carefree and free spirited before, if she was wise beyond her years, was she stubborn and outspoken,did she love her dog , did she have a belief in God or would her new lease on life give her perspective and what about all those people who said they'd pray for her , would they really , would this make them see that there is something beyond this realm that there needs to be something or someone to turn to in these times. whatever they may call it, God, Buddha ,Universe This Ashley was from the U.S it sounded like maybe from one of those hospitals that you hear about on primteime medical tv shows. Anyways i've joined her group (along with my friend) she'll probably never know who i am or why i joined but maybe she'll jsut be grateful that so many people that she doesnt know are praying for her ...really praying for her and sharing a common human experience. I am asking you to encourage others you know to join our daughters"ashley we love you" group , i think its a great way to tie us all together, i know people put down facebook etc but it is a wonderful tool to reach out to others where other means may not be so possible.
. We are thankful to all those who have joined , please pass it on it is very encouraging. Wishing you all opportunities to see our commanalities instead of differences, particularly at this time of year.
Peace
Lori
p.s. Spirit of angels is another one of those commanalities we all share especially this time of year..wanting to reach out to others in need....created by a fellow oncology mom (Jen, west coast families writer) and friend to support and enrich the lives of those suffering this time of year. This event is to provide gifts and financial help to those stuck at childrens hospital and Ronald McDonald house over Christmas while their child fights the cancer battle. It is a stressful time of the year for these families emotionally, financially and spirtually...a tough place to be when many others are celebrating at home their real home, they make the best of it but its still a tough go. A thought to consider if youre looking to make a difference this year. As well, if you can ,give blood if youre so inclined....major shortage,We all need it and we alll have it ...we can all share it,its another commonground thing , maybe even karamtic. im sure Ashley alone has consumed more than a typical twilight vampire this year...Thanks.
The Journey of a butterfly...Ashleys life has become symbolic of a butterfly, peaceful beautiful and free to fly where the wind takes her. We have a white butterfly that flies around us in the garden in the springtime where the other girls play. Irish folklore tells us that a white butterfly is the rebirth of a deceased child's soul reborn into something even more beautiful than before...our butterfly
June 29 1992 - February 16 2009
Welcome to the Journey of a Butterfly
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...
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