Gratitude Corner
“Childcan” is one of the charitable organizations that has positively enriched our lives over the last 12 years!
There are two opposing realities on an exceptional health-care journey. On one hand, we are shattered by a life-changing diagnosis… our world
is turned upside-down in an instant, and our positive emotions are overpowered by fear. We are thrust into a world where we feel helpless
and overwhelmed by the fact that we can’t “fix it”, let alone understand it. As a result, our balance is destroyed and we appreciate
that we’ve been transported well outside the boundaries of “normal”.
On the other hand, there are individuals and organizations you meet on these crazy journeys that make it their mission to support all of us teetering
on the edge. The support of these special people brings a sense of some balance to our lives and fuels our hopefulness – they demonstrate
through their actions that they understand our situation and their support makes us feel that we are not alone.
Childcan is one of these wonderful organizations… I consider this organization to be one of the blessings we have received
because of our journey. You can read about all of the programs sponsored by Childcan on their web-site, www.childcan.com.
The support that we have personally received and appreciated is in the form of:
1. Hospital Parking Passes – when you multiply the number of times we have gone to the hospital by the amount it costs to park, you arrive
at an unbelievable number… I have no idea what our visit total is up to, but I do know that it would be somewhere in the “several hundreds”.
Our parking passes for the hospitals we visit have fundamentally reduced some of the financial strain.
2. Support Groups – having the opportunity to connect with other care-givers on similar journeys is a critical facilitator of our emotional
well-being. Meeting with care-givers is like looking into a mirror… you understand their angst of making tough, urgent decisions; you feel
their pain when you appreciate the challenges they’ve faced; you feel their fear for the health and well-being of their children. It’s affirming
to realize that my feelings are very “normal” for someone on this kind of journey!
3. Family Fun Days – whether it’s a trip to Wonderland or a Christmas party, watching your children smiling, laughing and having fun reminds
you of their resilience and capacity to live in the moment. Resilience is critical for anyone dealing with a life-threatening illness, and seeing
it in action fuels hope that everything is going to work out!
4. Funding for Paediatric Oncology Research – last but not least, in a world where less than 4% of the money raised for cancer research goes towards
childhood cancers, it’s imperative that funding is ear-marked specifically for Paediatric cancers.
Thank you Childcan for everything you do to help us navigate stormy waters!