Cancer touched

[Chelle DB]

Hey, Otera. I know I'm kind of reviving a dead thread.... but my aunt just recently died of cancer. I just remembered seeing this thread and... decided to post.
I'd like to ask all the religious people if they could say a prayer or two for my aunt's family. She has four children (18, 18, 20, and 23) and one grandchild (2). My uncle is taking it pretty hard... and so are the kids, of course. Anyway, I'd really appreciate any prayers, or if you're not religious, than just a nice thought or somthing.
Thanks.

I'm not a religious person MacGeek but I'll send a little prayer for your aunts family. You don't need to be religious to pray...and it's funny when you think about it, how many of us who don't have any religious denomination still pray to God when the going gets tuff...or even when things go great...we say Thank you God...pretty weird huh??
Anyhoo, I'm just popping in because I have a friend who is dying from cancer and even though I have never met her in person, I can't help but think of her everyday. I have sent her some cards to lift her spirits and I do find myself saying a little pray for her and her family every now and then...more now than then!
My dad has just gone into remission after having treatment for lung cancer. He's a smoker and he still smokes. Watching him go through the treatment was horrendous for all of us. Weird thing was, at first he didn't suffer from any of the usual symptoms of the treatment...I did though...the more he went through the sicker I got...it was most bizarre!!...of course that only lasted a few weeks and was not debilitating to me...I was just crook for apparently no reason while dad was having a good ole time!!
Anyhoo, it all did eventually catch up and he was very ill just before Christmas. The hardest part was watching him whither away. He just seemed to shrink to almost nothing. And when he ended up in hospital and needed a blood transfusion, he collapsed in the bathroom...I was the only one there and having to ring mum and tell her to come back to the hospital NOW was hard...and mum didn't cope to well with it all either...so the three of us kids and our spouses had to rally round and set both mum and dad on the right track. Dad almost gave up at one time. Mum was living in denial. My uncle, (mum's older brother) came to help us. His wife had gone through treatment for breast cancer some years ago, (she's in remission also), as did a family friend who lost his wife to breast cancer 3 years ago...she was only 34 years old and had two children aged 3 and 1. Having gone through the trauma in dealing and living with cancer, it was such a help to have someone who understood what we were going through. I think humour got us through some of the really rough patches. I think if you can't laugh at yourself or the whole situation, then it can be a lot harder.
I only wish my parents would give up the cigarettes. Why can't they see that this was a warning??
What really irks me though, is that I know people who have or had cancer and they either never smoked or gave up the smokes a long time ago and they still succumbed to that blasted disease. It just doesn't seem right you know? I'm, not sure if I believe in karma...sometimes I question the little faith I have and wonder why this happens. But I guess it's just life and some of us win and some of us don't. It never seems to make any sense though.
Ok...I think I'm done...nice thread ...nice place to lift some of the tension off ones shoulders!!

[Myn McGeek, Third Sentinel]

Wow. Thanks for the prayers, chelle. (I really meant anyone who believes in God enough to actually pray... not necasarily really religious per say )
And I'll certainly pray for your whole family and friends. I'm glad you were able to lift some tension off your shoulders. ^_^ But wow, that's a lot of things causing tension... *hugs* I'll pray for you too. I certainly hope everything goes well... at very least, that everyone is in good spirits and at peace with themselves and God.

[Otera]

I'm checking in on everyone. No one's posted in here for months, I hope that means that everything's going well for everyone rather than the other way around.

Okay, I need some suggestions. For my English class, we're doing a proposal project and I've chosen to propose a system to provide meals and support for the families of cancer patients. A system like this would have been helpful when my mom was diagnosed because my little sister who is now a freshman in high school and I had to swap out cooking meals, and this was when I was in 8th grade and she was in fourth that we had to cook dinner for the family. We did manage to make decent meals, but it would have been a massive help to have a group that would help out.
I intend to not only suggest a way that a group could help out the families of cancer patients, but I intend to try to implement it. It might start out small, perhaps a group of concerned students at my school, doing food drives and making meals for families with cancer that we know of in the area, but it could spread if I can make it work. I've already been told that if I proposed a solution that could really work, Hopkins would be willing to implement it.

This year my sister held the first annual Ribbons for Robin breast cancer walk in my town. I'm very proud of her because she set the whole thing up by herself. She's 14 and she did all the work to set up the walk. The walk went off with only one hitch (it had to be moved because of a football game at the original location) and earned over $8000, an amount which a family friend agreed to MATCH in my mother's memory. My sister made the paper several times and is planning on continuing to hold the walk due to the success it had this year. She also intends to take part in the Avon Walk when she turns 16.


I am very proud of my sister for her accomplishment and her determination. She's donated all the money to a little know breast cancer research foundation which invests all the money it receives in research. While my sister was looking at the different foundations she could donate to, she was appalled to see how little of the money donated to the well known foundations actually goes to research. Most of the money they get goes to advertising and getting their names out there.
My sister has made an effort to try to help save others, and I would like to help others going through this horrible experience. With a group that will bring meals to the families of cancer patients, that's one thing that the families don't need to worry about and I know we were grateful when mom's friends started bringing us meals when she had to restart her chemo.

[Girlbot]

Otera, this is a really nice thought that you had to make this thread.
I want to say I'm so sorry for all the people here that have lost someone to cancer. My Mom died ten years ago of Lymphoma. I was nine. It was hard.
It started in her small intestine and they removed the tumor and some of the intestinal tract, but it had spread to other parts of her body. It's still hard to talk about, so I will just leave it there.
One thing I will say, is that when I dream, sometimes I dream about my Mom, and when I wake up and remember the dreams, I think how nice it was to have visited with her for awhile. Is't it true that "a dream is a wish your heart makes". OK, I'm off to have a bit of a cry right now.

[Myn McGeek, Third Sentinel]

*hugs for GB*

*hugs for Otera*

*hugs for everyone else*

[Girlbot]

*hugs for GB*

*hugs for Otera*

*hugs for everyone else*

Thanks for the hug Myn
*hugs back*

[Otera]

I've created a social group to go along with this thread and I think I managed to invite everyone who has posted in here. I'm hoping that the group can be a place to exchange not only stories, but ideas of what we can do to make a difference. As soon as I finish with my english project (proposing a solution to a problem) I'm going to put the proposal up on the group's board. I would really like to turn my proposal into a reality, so if anyone would like to help me try to get it set up after reading what I would like to do, I would be exceedingly grateful of any assistance

[Myn McGeek, Third Sentinel]

[Kelt'ar]

I've created a social group to go along with this thread and I think I managed to invite everyone who has posted in here. I'm hoping that the group can be a place to exchange not only stories, but ideas of what we can do to make a difference. As soon as I finish with my english project (proposing a solution to a problem) I'm going to put the proposal up on the group's board. I would really like to turn my proposal into a reality, so if anyone would like to help me try to get it set up after reading what I would like to do, I would be exceedingly grateful of any assistance

Hey, O.
I meant to say this back then...but I was too much of a lazy jackass to. Thanks for inviting me to the group. And let me know if there's any way I can contribute or assist...

- O -