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...

Monday, May 17, 2010


Friends : brittanny and Lexine : lessons
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 12:13pm | Edit Note | Delete
To fully appreciate this note you have to view the recent pic's posted of Brittanny and Lexine : bald.
Prior to us participating in the balding for dollars event a few weeks ago, brittanny asked if she could shave her head. I asked her why and she replies "for Ashley" O f course being a normal parent who can forsee this act of kindness a little beyond the actual shave i discouraged her and tried to illicit her attention in other ways to "help Ashley" brittanny loves to draw so i encouraged her to create some artwork for the hospital which they sometimes publish. I knew that this was falling on half hearted acceptance. Balding for dollars came and to my surprise plenty of 6 year olds were having it done. Brittanny insisted a few days later that she indeed was old enough and i no longer had any leverage. I tried to give her timelines of how long it wuold take for her hair to come back. I reminded her that the fundraising was now over, Brittanny insisted that she still wanted it done. I was so scared she would do it, hear one negative comment and fall apart with regret and feel lonely and ridiculed. The next night Brittanny's friend and neighbour lexine phones and tells Brittanny that she is shaving her head ,well i know that no one would mess with lexine, they wouldn't dare. I now had no other choice but to let her do it. Lex's mom offered to shave britt's head as well and i sat there in anticipation waiting of the axe to drop like in a bad horror film. Brittanny had a smile on her face as big as texas and giggled while having her hair fall to the ground. Lexine squealed in delight as each piece of britt's locks floated away. They stopped often to hug eachother and hold hands , when they were done they danced around the room joyfully giddy admiring eachothers new dew's. they were bonded by their new sense of style and perhaps a feeling of power and freedom in a situation that they are walking through together. They posed for pic's and were greeted at school the next day as they wipped of their hats with hi-5's , praise, tears of awe. They giggled to see the expression on their teachers face. Their school journal is fulll of similar stories about their weekends and special times together, i am grateful for this friendship Britanny has ,it is pure , innocent,brittanny tells me often how much she loves lexine, they are true friends , watching them play (and they play the way children were meant to play ,with huge imagination) is awesome . I am reminded of my own special friendships the ones that walk with you through the hard stuff and celebrate with you the good stuff. i am not sure of what or why they shaved their heads whether it was strictly for ashley or cancer awareness or whatever but i am pretty sure in their hearts and minds they know.What a memory for them.
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