Sunday, March 20, 2011

one of our kids

One of the kids in this picture has a tumor in her right leg.


You might not know which kid it is; the kid's parents don't know if the tumor is cancerous or not.
What the parents do know is that between this picture...


...and this one, the tumor became infected and grew 4 times its size. Overnight.
And it's causing her right leg to grow larger and longer than her left leg.



One of the kids in this picture is scheduled for an urgent surgery to remove a growing tumor in her leg.
The cost is over $22,000.


Insurance won't pay for it. Will you?

More information is on their blog and you can click here to donate online. They are dear friends of ours who trusted God to bring them a daughter against all kinds of odds. It was a beautiful day when God brought them Abigail. It has been a difficult road for them health-wise (which takes a toll in other ways) as Abigail has been diagnosed with asthma, neurofibromitosis (which causes the growth of tumors all over the body, as well as other things), a super-annoying nut allergy, and other things that just make life more difficult and mean lots of drives to doctor's appointments that are rough on a car-sick little girl.

She is a ton of fun, though, and more of a trooper than I would EVER be! She's between my kids' ages and is a great friend to them. She and Eden (whom she calls "Eednie") share lots of hugs and Abigail is always gracious when my kids try to "share" (which often means taking a toy away and saying, "You have to share!"). She loves to dance. She's smart as a whip, and I think she knows it! She has such a sweet, spunky spirit and a great laugh.

So it saddens us as they now deal with this tumor and a cost of surgery that keeps going up. We had planned to do fund-raisers together this month, but when the tumor suddenly grew -- a LOT -- the surgery was moved up and there is now very little time to raise the needed funds. So instead of planning a dance party, I'm just going to write this blog entry. It's not quite as fun, but hopefully it can reach even more people. Please donate if you can.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Don't sweat the big stuff

I suppose lots of people have conversations like this with their kids. It's still novel around here.

On a recent drive to the Indianapolis Children's Museum, Israel kept slipping his arms out of the shoulder straps of his car seat. (Pat points out it is perhaps time to move him to a big boy booster. I'm not having it...yet.) We tried to convey to him the importance of always wearing his seat belt. You know, in case of an accident.

"You could go flying through the windshield," Pat said.
"But...Super Grover can fly!"
I explained, "Well, you won't fly like Super Grover. Your body will go through the glass and it will hurt."
"And you'll get all cut up and you might die," Pat added, since Israel's face didn't look concerned enough after my explanation.
"But then I will go be with Jesus!" Israel said, like it was one of the best ideas we'd ever had.

Aside from this brief conversation, all the rest of Israel's energy on the ride was tied up in anticipation of seeing the triceratops. But when we arrived, he was afraid of the sounds of the dinosaurs and the storm clouds projected onto the ceiling. He was afraid of getting rained on. I had to go around showing him how the plants and the rocks and all were "fake," and how the dinosaur bones couldn't move and how the people and the museum are just really good at pretending. He hung around for a short while once the "storm" moved in, but was relieved to move on to the next exhibit.

He was also afraid of digging for fossils in the next exhibit.

He's often afraid of people.
He's afraid of shadows, he says. Tree shadows, specifically.
He's afraid of getting water in his eyes.
But he's not afraid of dying.