Click On Christi

It was very touching to receive an essay about Christi from a sweet college student on the west coast. Years ago, Anna lovingly started following Christi's journey and praying for her. Anna even joined our NB listserv and started her own neuroblastoma awareness website which features many of our dear friends and even more we've never met. She's told us that "meeting" Christi forever changed her. We are truly humbled. I hope you like reading her essay she turned in for one of her college classes. (We think she's so loving she'd be a FABULOUS nurse!) We wish her the very best and send our love to Washington! THANK YOU, ANNA!!

http://www.curefornb.com/forchristi.htm (The above "pink" link takes you to Anna's wonderful home page. This link is on the left side of her home page and it's a tribute to Christi, the inspiration for starting her work. God bless, Anna!



To Click On Christi
by Anna Jarvis

It was nothing impressive. The click of a mouse and a Web page slowly loading, probably considered one of the most insignificant moments in human history by most, but for me it was one of the events that changed my life forever. That simple act would forever change my perspective.

The Web site was for a girl named Christi Thomas, who at the time was six years old and a year and a half into her battle with a cancer called neuroblastoma. She had already survived the odds. At diagnosis, her parents were told that if they hadn't taken their daughter to Disneyland they should because she more than likely wouldn't live six months.

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a cancer of the nervous system. In the U.S. there are only about six hundred new cases each year. It is most common in infants, and the best chance a child has of surviving is if they are diagnosed before the age of four. Diagnosed at the age of five, and with the cancer eating up ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of her bone marrow, Christi had a tumor with tentacles that wrapped around her heart.

That mouse click led to many more as I visited her Web site daily to see pictures of Christi, her younger sister Shayla and her parents Angela and Shayne. I also read the journal entries written by her mom on her daily treatments and their lives since her diagnosis. I began to follow the "Thomas Team" through their roller coaster of treating cancer. By now they had the need for clinical trials and moved to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (traveling regularly from their home in Ohio), after having just gone through grueling treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC.

I don't believe anyone with a conscience can read about the suffering of a child and not have a reaction, but for me it was more than a "how sad" feeling, and then getting back to my regular life. Visiting the website would motivate me in a way I never could have imagined. Christi is far from a tragic "cancer kid" story. A very intelligent child who qualified for MENSA (a society for geniuses) at the age of four, she was a funny, vibrant, caring child who lived her life to the fullest. No coincidence that her parents and sister were the same way.

I was impressed that while they were dealing with the fact that their daughter was terminally ill, Angela didn't call Angel Flight service one time because "she didn't want to bother anyone". This was when they were paying thousands of dollars a month in plane tickets traveling to Philadelphia for Christi's treatment and they were struggling financially and emotionally with the fact that their child's cancer had progressed. Their compassion obviously was passed down. Christi was considered terminal by all medical definitions and yet she hosted many blood drives and lemonade stands to help pediatric cancer research. She would never say she was sick; she would just say "I'm okay, I just have cancer." She knew that her situation wasn't normal, but she never got annoyed about the attention she received from other kids because she was different. She was patient with them and just tried to live her life as normally as she could when she could. Watching this family made me realize that, while I had my challenges, none of them would be as bad as theirs. It opened my eyes to how good I have it compared to what they were going through.

In subsequent visits to her Web site, I learned that her cancer had progressed six different times over three years. That she attempted numerous clinical trials. That during her first week of fifth grade, she was in constant pain that would break through Tylenol, morphine, then all the other pain medications available. That she had made an emergency trip to her hospital in Philadelphia because her pain was so severe and then spent three weeks in the hospital with many episodes of breakthrough pain that could never be fully helped. That she had slipped into a coma and passed away in the presence of her parents.

This was the first person I have felt close to who has died. Having started school four days earlier, I knew it was impossible to attend her funeral being held in Ohio. I had to stay at home and get any funeral information from her mother's journal. I've felt every emotion regarding this situation and still find myself questioning lots of my personal beliefs. I don't know if I can trust a God who lets a child suffer for four years and rob her and her family of a young life, but I cannot reject a God who allowed this child to be an inspiration to literally thousands of people.

My Internet surfing led me to do everything better, particularly my school work because Christi loved learning so much. My charity endeavors are more than a donation once a year at Christmas time when the unity (or guilt) of the season reminds us of our lives. Isolated in the wheat fields of the Palouse, we don't have many children being treated in our little hospital, but I try to reach out to other families. I have found more compassion for people and remarkably I’ve come to believe that people are mostly good

I still keep in touch with Christi's parents. I want them to know that she was more to me than a poster child for pediatric cancer. I especially want Christi's younger sister Shayla to know that just because Christi is gone that she is not forgotten and they are not forgotten because Christi made an impact on my life through the click of a mouse.

A year ago sweet Jenn & Traci, our COSI friends, drove to Philly to help me with Christi.
Adding light and joy to a day in a special way only "Harriet" and "Elizabeth" can do! May God richly bless these sweet Angels on earth!