Labor Day Weekend

As hard as we try, we cannot forget Labor Day Weekend 2006 - a new tumor, now on Christi's brain, had been discovered and intense whole brain radiation started. Frying the brain of your profoundly gifted child (IQ 161) is not something you want to do, yet you've been told that's your only hope of saving her life. Early in her treatment months, we were told the intense chemo would mean she wouldn't be able to have children. That broke our hearts then, but we slowly got over it knowing it was "try to save her life" - or not. Ruining her incredible brain - yet another blow this evil disease threw at us. Sickening, absolutely sickening.

Radiation treatments are not typically scheduled on the Labor Day Weekend, but due to the severe nature at hand, a team was called in. They joked about not really wanting to be at their in-law's family BBQ's anyway, but we knew there was no doubt they'd rather be at their picnics, than doing what they were doing to a nine year old, very scared, little gal - sickening, childhood cancer - horrific.


Of course this weekend brings us closer to September 11th - the day 5 year old Christi was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 and untimately to September 19th - four years later when she exhaled for the last time and we somehow walked out of that hospital without her, paid a huge parking bill for our van we didn't realize had been parked in the parking garage of CHOP for so many weeks, and drove 10 hours home to tell Shayla we did all we could, but it wasn't enough to save her sister.

My new job at BGSU has really been even better than I ever dreamed it would be - being home more and being able to run forgotten items to Shayla at school has been great AND it has indeed been a distraction for this month, the month that always brings us down; however the new job (distraction) it hasn't been enough to make me forget this pain I am feeling.

We have been looking forward to this weekend all year. This weekend we were blessed to have our annual trip to the lake with my awesome sister and her amazing family. It was our third year - something we started doing after Christi died. I wish Christi could have been with us because she LOVED her cousins so very, very much; however, we still had a wonderful time together and it helped us try to forget about the horrific nightmare we were going through with precious Christi three years ago.Labor Day Weekend, 2009: Saturday night "The Cousins at Cedar Point" I liked the bright light "orb" on the left. Made me feel like Christi was there with some of her favorite people - her cousins! We spent Sunday afternoon and early evening over at Kelley's Island and had a wonderful day. Monday found Shayne taking the children to the African Wildlife Safari park - the drive thru animal zoo "Feed the Animal" zoo. I hope you all had a fabulous Labor Day Weekend 2009 and my heart and prayers go to all of the families stuck in hospitals this weekend.
Shortly before Christi was diagnosed with cancer (age 5, 2002) we went to Prehistoric Forest / Mystery Hill at Marblehead. We drove by it going to catch the Kelley's Island Ferry yesterday so Shayla was intrigued.
Shayla did not remember going there (She was 3.), but as we walked through we talked about the various things the girls did together there that day. We blinked away tears; we miss that special girl so much! Rest in peace, sweetpea!