Come run with us(childrun) ..we dont have the swine flu
Monday, May 4, 2009 at 1:27pm | Edit Note | Delete
Hello Everyone
Well did i say(hastily) in my last blog that our trip went without a hitch...silly Lori you should no better...Well in true Lowey style or Loriism philosophy my beautiful Mexican vacation did not end in 8 days as the travel agent told us..we were able to keep that Mexican feeling going a little longer..."careful what you wish for" Loriism 101..Well for those of you that i did not let in on our dirty little secret(so as not to panic you) we have spent the last 6 days in protective custody , i mean quarantine. I really don't know if i made a huge mistake being a "good mom" ...and taking my kids into the clinic for cold symptoms. I thought that we would walk into the clinic and they would ask if we had been to Mexico City or Cancun and once i replied " no we were on the cheaper side of Mexico" they would warn my well seasoned medical mind about temperature and fluids and rest and we would all be ok. At the very sight of our tropical but fading tan they whisked us off in masks and gowns to " the quarantine room" i think it actually had a trap door in it, but i digress. I spotted the looks of the people in the clinic as they escorted us like swine off to slaughter , they appeared to either be saying "thats what you get for going on a vacation" or " you filthy family get you and your germ laden offspring outta here". I knew instantly that there was no turning back. The doctor swabbed us and laid it on the line .."no school,...no work(after being back one whole day).. no public places"...(oh except darcy who was allowed to continue his lifestyle because he wasnt there as the chauffuer to these hackers and runny nosers) i on the other hand still had to be tested. bummer , the kids kinda happy for day 1 ..just what they need more time off of school i was afraid i was going to start getting knocks on the door (from one of those poeple..you know the ones lol)asking me if i'd started homeshooling my children or if i had them hidden in some dark cellar. The results originally supposed to take 24 hours well that took a quick turn to 3 or 4 days. By day 2 the kids were climbing the walls and in my own philosophical 1/100thof the reasoning part of my brain was looking to make this all 'ok' , "an adventure" maybe , an "untimed bout of "special time"...huh i soon realized and we all joked that maybe Ashley was truly pissed that she didnt go on this vacation and judging by the names all these sibling beauties called eachother in the past i could see her naming this flu personally. Well we did find ways to pass the time , going to the park , going to the park , going to the par k and oh did i mention going to the park and dashing out of the park at the mere sight of another human like we were trolls from under the port mann bridge. Our neighbours were great , were completely convinced we didnt have anything and kept us feeling human by allowing us to share the same breathing space , they let the kids all get together and i even shared wine.. i mean coffee with a couple of them.( no not form the same glass..we're not wierd) What did we get out of this ..well the kids actually started crying one morning cause of the stuff they were missing out on at school and socially.. the empathy wasn't that far away for us to remember just what Ashley had gone through each time she spiked a fever and the next 10 days a complete write off...the lessons of the journey , never far away , never out of reach for any great length of time. Well all in all reminded how little some things are in the big picture , how if you want to make God laugh tell him your plans, and how sometimes things just make you sit still for a while , maybe we were starting to run too fast , im not sure, maybe they just really needed their rooms painted (which they skillfully conned darcy into..wiley girls!).We got the news today all is well, tests are negative, what weird words to hear "the tests are negative" still torcher waiting to hear any results anymore but the word negative can sometimes be so positive...thanks for reading thanks for understanding..got to run..oh by the way speaking of run, continue reading.......
Sunday June 7 2009 Our family and friends will be running as a team for Childrun a fundraiser for childhood cancer. As you know Ashley fought a tough tough battle and ran a long hard journey, for that we are running in her honour as well as to help find a cure for our other friends still fighting. I have posted a link on our facebook page "Ashley we love you" is our team name( something that has stuck since christy created the facebook group) if you would like to join us please do ...all details are on the webpage including downloading a pledge form and registration run route etc(which is at BCCH) Just click on the link and join the team or if you enter childrun.com and enter join a team , then choose Ashley we love you. I know not everyone can join us but if you would like i think there is an opton for"virtual runners" you can do this online and not even run(wow life is good, run a marathin and not run..awesome) please dont feel you have to run you can walk skip or cartwhell i dont care , as well there will be younger ones joining us so lots of excuses to take it easy. If you are a marathoner , Patty(who ran last year... ithink i beat her by a step ...absoultelyLOLOLOLOL) Tammi(and apparently jens..lol) then by all means show us up . If you cant run and would like to contribute all donations big and small are a huge help financially and spiritually.There will be a blue team sign in the crowd for you to find us and there is a deadline of i think may 15 to register in order to get your tshirt with the team name on it, however, you can stil join the team after that. I wil be responsible for picking up all the team pckgs and will give them to you if i see you before the race or morning of. Because Ashleys theme has always been butterflies i thought it would be kinda neat if you want to show a butterfly in some way. If the weather is nice maybe we can go to a park for a picnic (QueenE)or something after as it gets quite congested there after , just an idea no pressure, any ideas welcome..Any questions please email me , i know the registration is a bit pricey and i do thank you all for being a big part of our team through all of this ...happy pledging ..
Peace
The Lowey Family
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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