A Very Lucky Girl

September 27, 2010

Good grief! What a Sunday! The Lord’s Day… a day for worship, for fellowship, for community, for putting others before yourself. Thirty kids at Bethlehem United Methodist Church did just that on Sunday. They raised $2,400 for Team Tanner by baking and pounding the pavement, Light the Night style.

We arrived at church on Sunday morning in time to set up Tanner’s lemonade stand across from the kids’ bake sale and sold after early service and before late service. In a couple of hours, together, we made more than $1,000, thanks to the generosity of our congregation, people who have already shown us immeasurable kindness.

Then, Sunday night, we went back for the kids’ Light the Night Walk. They started in the gym and ended up outside running and walking around the parking lot. Preschoolers through 5th graders… kids who asked their classmates at school to bring in their change for Tanner… kids who went door to door in their neighborhood, sharing Tanner’s story and asking for help. At the end of the walk, they took their money, which they had folded up in bandannas and carried with them, and dumped it happily, one by one, into a green box. Tanner and I watched in disbelief as it piled up… $1,200 worth, collected by children just to help a friend.

It was a triumphant night. One in which kids dealt a blow to the type of cancer that makes up ¼ of all childhood cancers. Imagine if we were able to find a real cure for leukemia? One quarter of all childhood cancer would disappear in one fell swoop. So fitting that kids should play a role in that. I was so proud of them and so humbled by their enthusiasm and dedication to helping their friend.

But, the night wasn’t over. John took Jake home to go to bed, but Tanner and I headed to Rally Mania, the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research concert at the Factory in Franklin. Along with Tanner’s friend, Madelyn, and two other little girls, Tanner was a Rally Rock N’ Roll Princess. After dancing and singing for an hour or so, they brought the girls up on stage, each escorted by a teenage boy who was also a cancer survivor. As the crowd cheered and clapped, they presented the girls with pink guitars, signed by all the artists who participated in the concert, including Eddie Money, Kix Brooks, Ashley Cleveland and Jars of Clay. Tanner was beyond surprised and has been “writing” songs on it all afternoon today. We danced and sang until the very end and Eddie Money brought Tanner and another Rally Princess up on stage with him. Then he kissed Tanner’s hand and called her an “Angel.” We had so much fun and she felt so special.

That's Eddie Money pointing at Tanner!

On the way out of the concert, carrying the pink guitar in a big cardboard box, I told Tanner I thought she was a pretty lucky girl. It sounded odd as it came out of my mouth, considering what she has been through and still has on her plate, but it felt right anyway. I told her that her having leukemia had given us the ability to see the fullness of peoples’ kindness, their wonderful way of reaching out to help when we needed it most. She agreed and said, “I think a lot of people love me.”

So, now Team Tanner stands at $14,600… a number I never dreamed to reach.

Love,
Beth

WE DID IIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

September 21, 2010

Oh, you wonderful people… with a little more than 2 weeks to go, we have officially surpassed our Light the Night goal of $10,000!!!!!! Oh my gosh!!!! As of this writing, we have $10,185!!!!

We are so thrilled to be making this contribution toward hunting down this vile disease and finding a way to make it go away for good!!! A way that doesn’t hurt so much, doesn’t take so much, and doesn’t take so long. A way that works for all forms of blood cancers, not just a few. A way that offers hope where there is currently little.

But, we’re not stopping here! Let’s see how far we can go. Let’s see how big of a difference we can make. We still have our church’s Light the Night walk for the kids on Sunday the 26th, for example. So, we know we’re not stopping at $10,000.

If you need more information to decide whether this is a cause toward which you would want to dedicate some of your charitable giving, there is a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society video on YouTube that would be worth watching. It is a good overview of the nationwide event with personal stories from survivors and those who are walking in honor of those who didn’t make it. Last year’s Team Tanner is all over the video. Look for signs with Tanner’s picture, our Team Tanner banner carried by Keith and Leslie, and a shot of the whole team grouped around Tanner’s wagon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df4a9XV8rBk It really is such an uplifting, special event.

Tanner’s story from last year’s walk is also on the LLS Website. Tanner was extremely sick the day of Light the Night. She had endured four types of chemo that day and we pulled her in a wagon because she was too weak to walk. Her strong spirit was intact, though, and she insisted on coming. You can read her story at http://www.lightthenight.org/tn/localchapter/patients.

Go Jake, go!

We had a great weekend with Jake’s soccer game on Saturday and Tanner singing in church on Sunday. Jake LOVES soccer! After a rocky start (he pulled the goal down on top of himself and spent a considerable amount of time crying about it instead of playing), he did super and looked so proud of himself and happy playing. It was great for us all to be there, cheering him on and for him to have the spotlight.

Making a friend

I’m feeling stronger every day. I’m pretty much back to my day-to-day activities at this point with the exception of not being able to lift anything heavy (including Jake) or doing any strenuous housework. I have an appointment at the end of October to find out if I will need the radioactive iodine therapy, and won’t know if my parathyroid came back clean for another week or so. So far, so good.

Thank you for all the well wishes, kind thoughts, prayers and meals this past week. I have said it often, but I will say it again… you do not walk through a year like we’ve just had alone. You would wither up and blow away. You are carried by the kindness of those you love, those you know and even those you don’t know. Never underestimate the power of even the smallest of kindnesses. They make life bearable when everything else says otherwise.

We are blessed amidst our difficulty.

Love,
Beth

Headed Home — Minus a Thyroid

September 15, 2010

We’re waiting for discharge at Vanderbilt where I stayed last night after having the second half of my thyroid and, hopefully, all of my cancer, removed. Everything went very well, but we won’t know for sure whether or not I’ll need any radioactive iodine treatment until I see the endocrinologist. That’s the method of giving radiation to any remaining thyroid tissue by ingesting radioactive iodine, which is then absorbed by the thyroid. It would render me radioactive for a few days, but it has few side effects. The lymph nodes around my thyroid turned out not to be a real issue as they were, in my unique anatomy, down my neck further than normal. The doctor did take one parathyroid to test, just in case, and we won’t know about that for several weeks.

It takes a village. Beth stayed with me last night so John could go home. Mom and Kim got the kids to bed and walked Domino. Mom will be here all week and friends have started a dinner list, as usual. We are blessed beyond all understanding with the best friends and family anyone could ever hope for. We often feel we are wearing out our welcome, but they insist on helping anyway. Humbling for sure.

Just a short story about Tanner… she has been collecting soda can pop tops for Ronald McDonald house at school and home. She gets them from all the kids at her lunch table and brings them home and puts them in a little bag… all her idea. It has been driving her crazy that a little boy in her class won’t give her his pop tops. The morning of my surgery she asked me to print out a picture of her with long hair and with no hair. When I asked why she said, “I’m going to show Jordan so he knows why he should give me the pop tops.” LOVE that never give up attitude!

Thanks for all the well wishes. Can’t wait to get home.

Love,
Beth

Clinic Day #40

September 8, 2010

Today was Tanner’s monthly clinic visit for Vincristine and counts. Her neutraphil counts were about where we expected them after having raised her chemo two weeks ago to 75% — 1,500, which is the high side of where they like them to be. If they are still up next month, they will raise her chemo again. I’m hoping that’s not the case as the last 2 or 3 times they have tried to raise her methotrexate level to 100%, her counts have crashed and it takes 3-4 weeks for them to come back up above 1,000. That would mean her missing a lot of school and be so disheartening for her. She’s doing so well.

It was the fastest clinic visit we have ever had. We were in an out in 1 ½ hours thanks to a new method of ordering chemo. Love Vanderbilt. She was back at school in time for lunch.

The weather cooperated enough for us to have a very successful lemonade stand! We don’t have an official count yet, because we have lots of coins to count, but we raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $170!!! Wow! She is so excited and can’t wait to tell Corinne at school tomorrow. Thanks to Corinne, Laurel and Ashley for being our lemonade stand partners.

We had some special visitors at our lemonade stand – Madelyn and her mom, Amy, and brother, Hudson! Madelyn is a little four-year-old girl who lives in our neighborhood and also has ALL. It was fun to see them and always great to be able to chat with Amy.

Started another 5-day pulse of steroids tonight. She is on the same increased dosage that she had such a hard time with last month. I hope she can hold it together enough to make it to her Alice in Wonderland rehearsal on Friday night. She has been counting the days down until this first rehearsal for two weeks.

Thanks to all the sweet former neighbors who were so generous to Tanner’s Lemonade for Leukemia stand today. We miss y’all!

Love,
Beth

Join Us for Light the Night 2010 on October 7

August 19, 2010

I have struggled with writing this post. Not because there is anything difficult about the topic, but because I want it to be perfect. I want it to be so inspiring that Team Tanner alone ends a little piece of cancer. But, after poring over cancer statistics, strategizing and waiting in vain for inspiration to hit me, I finally realized that this is simple.

This is me, the mother of a child with cancer, asking the people who love us to help us make sure this doesn’t happen to another family.

Last year, Team Tanner raised $8,200 for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk. Friends and family gathered that night to carry illuminated red balloons in support of Tanner, who carried the white balloon of a survivor. We pulled her in a wagon because she was too weak to walk. Her little body had been injected with four kinds of chemo that day and she had spent the afternoon vomiting and sleeping. We left the decision to come up to her, and frankly, we discouraged her from coming because she was so sick. But, she was determined to see what it looked like when 3,000 people come together in support of those who are battling blood cancers and in honor of those who have lost the battle.

This year, we’re determined to raise even more money to fight blood cancers. To improve the prognosis for those who are not as lucky as Tanner, and to help find new treatments that are easier on patients and that don’t steal two to three years from someone’s life.

Our goal this year is $10,000. Tanner is planning lemonade stands (more on that when we get the details mapped out) and we’ll ask you all to help us with the rest.

Here’s how you can help:
1) Make a tax-deductible donation to Team Tanner by going to http://pages.lightthenight.org/tn/MidTN10/TeamTanner
2) Come walk with us. You can sign up on the Team Tanner site. It’s an easy, beautiful walk through downtown Nashville, across the Shelby Street Bridge and around the stadium.
3) Expand our reach by setting up your own fund-raising page on Team Tanner’s site and send emails to your friends, family or co-workers and ask them to help us stop blood cancers. Go to the Team Tanner site and it will create a page for you.

As parents of a child with leukemia, John and I come across many ways to help end cancer, especially for kids. These are all such worthwhile causes, but we feel strongly that we need to concentrate our efforts in one place. We have chosen the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, which last year funded more than $71 million in research, contributing to advances in chemotherapy, bone marrow and stem cell transplantation and to the development of new drugs that are affecting patient survival and quality of life. Light the Night walks around the country raised $39 million last year. Talk about giving cancer a swift kick in the butt!!! We’re proud to be part of this event and are hopeful to make a major contribution.

Tanner is determined to “win” this year. Last year, our team raised the second highest amount for any non-corporate team in the Middle Tennessee area. Tanner would like to be #1 this year… that’s my husband’s daughter all right!

Can you help?

Love,
Beth

Why Me?

August 15, 2010

I’m struggling a little today with “why me?” Why does it feel like just when we’re getting our feet back under us, something else comes along to wash away the very ground under us? Why do we keep having to scrabble back up to dry land? Why should one family have so much to deal with at once?

It’s not that I don’t believe it could be worse… I know it could. But, it could certainly be a lot better, too. Can I get an Amen?

My extended family is at the beach this week. It’s an every-other-year trip that I really look forward to. My parents, brothers, nieces, sister-in-law, aunt, and significant others and the Pages all rent a big house in Santa Rosa for a week in August. Except this year we can’t go. Tanner can’t swim in the ocean and the chemo makes her extra sensitive to the sun, so us going would have been an exercise in frustration.

I love the beach. There is something about that breeze that comes off the water, the salty smell, the sound of the surf hitting the sand… it all makes me feel like I somewhere so far away from home that none of my problems can follow me there. I found myself this morning crying because I knew that even if we had been able to go there this year, our problems would have still followed us. No amount of fresh salt air could have washed away Tanner’s cancer, much less mine. It couldn’t have washed away the year behind or the year to come.

So, I’m stuck in “why me?” land. But, I find that when I ask that question, more good things come to mind than bad.

Why me? What did I do to deserve such an awesome husband? One who puts us before himself every day. One who is unfailingly thoughtful. One who is there like a rock, no matter how bad it gets.

Why me? Why did I get such sweet, funny, spunky, creative, bright, energetic, happy children? One who is brave beyond her years and one who makes his mama smile even on her worst days.

Why me? Who has friends and family like we do? The kind that send a gift card to Panera, or flowers, or a meal, or a pair of flip flops for my tired feet. The kind that just show up when you need them, no matter what time. What a blessing.

Why me? Why did I get the most successfully treatable cancer there is? Why didn’t I get something scarier, like breast cancer? For that matter, why didn’t Tanner get AML instead of ALL? Or be 15 instead of 5 when she was diagnosed? Or be a boy instead of a girl? There are so many ways we have been blessed within our difficulties.

“Why me?” can be a pity party or a revelation. It depends upon how I choose to look at it.
I choose the latter.

I choose this life. The one I have right now with these people in it. With all the surgeries, the hospitals, the doctors, the pills, the cancers, the fear of what may come… I still choose it. This is my life with my family and friends and the good things will still outweigh the bad… if I let them.

Love,
Beth

All Went Very Well

July 29, 2010

Back home from surgery. Went so well, I didn’t even have to stay all night. I’m feeling better than I thought I would, but still tired and in some pain.

Domino faithfully by my side, stealing all my bed space.

God Bless Vanderbilt Hospital. We often wondered if the adult hospital was a wonderful as the Children’s hospital… it is. And Dr. Netterville, the director of head and neck center, who did my surgery, is awesome.

Thanks, as always, to all our wonderful friends and family who rally round when we need them. Love you all.

Love,
Beth

The Luxury of Being Proud

July 17, 2010

I got to the theater on Friday at about 1:30 with Jake in tow to get a good seat for Tanner’s performance. Aunt Beth had beat me there and as I walked into the building, I realized I had left my camera at home… doh! I left Jake in Beth’s capable hands and drove like a bat out of hell all the way home and back, just in time to slide in my seat and catch my breath before the lights went down and the show started.

The kids were doing 10 songs, one from each of the ten years the Boiler Room Theater has been in existence. The first song up was, “I Hope I Get It” from A Chorus Line. The song is really upbeat and the kids had learned some fun choreography to go along with it. Tanner was so cute doing the dances. When the music suddenly slowed, my daughter stepped confidently to the front and center of the stage and belted out her solo. She was FANTASTIC!!!!

As Beth, John and I were giving each other high fives, the kids launched into several more songs from Gypsy, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, and Fiddler on the Roof. Then, they all went back stage and the lights went out. A spotlight came on center stage and Tanner walked out from behind the curtain and all by herself, and sang the first stanza of “Day by Day” from Godspell. She was dressed in jean shorts and a purple t-shirt with a long psychedelic vest over it. Her long, skinny legs ended in a pair of sneakers that looked too big for the rest of her. Her short hair set her apart from all the other girls. She looked very small on the stage. But, she was so confident and so beautiful. John, Beth and I cried, of course. Tanner caught my eye while I was crying and I quickly smiled so she wouldn’t be thrown off.

It was an arena where it did not matter that she has leukemia. It didn’t matter that she has spent 25 days in the hospital over the past year or visited the oncology clinic 37 times, or spent countless hours in the ER with a fever. It didn’t matter that she had blood transfusions, platelet transfusions, antibody transfusions and an unbelievable variety of chemo drugs injected into her small body.

It just didn’t matter.

She could still stand up there and sing with a confidence and a natural ability that could not be stolen from her by this disease or her treatment. It was a great victory in what has been a grueling battle. In that moment, it just did not matter that she has cancer.

John and I were left speechless all that night. We kept watching the videos we had taken over and over. She had zero fear on the stage and why should she? What could be scarier that what she has already endured? I think we just couldn’t believe that after all that she has been through in the last year, there she was, shining on that stage. Making a place for herself, despite the fact that she had been in the hospital just the day before getting chemo.

It was just a great day, one we will not forget for a long time, and the first of many we will spend sitting in a theater watching our daughter perform. We’re already trying to figure out how she can do Alice in Wonderland in the fall. She’s found what she loves and what she’s good at; and I think it will really help her get through the next year to have something she is passionate about to focus on.

I realize I have gushed beyond what is acceptable, considering this is my own child. But, it’s been a long time since we have been able to proud of her for anything other than fighting cancer.

Love,
Beth

P.S. You can watch two of her solos by following this link http://gallery.me.com/john_page#100082. We kept the clips short so as not to compromise the privacy of the other kids in the show.

Clinic Day #37

July 15, 2010

Hurray for counts above 1,000!!!! Finally!!! Tanner’s neutraphils were at 1,500 today, which means she can have salad and go to a restaurant again! She was very happy.

Mercifully, we had a pretty quick visit today and got her back to theater camp by noon. She is so excited about tomorrow’s performance. I keep trying to fend off the bad thoughts that keep creeping into my head when I remember that she was super excited last time as well and woke up sick that morning. I can’t shake the feeling that we are not quite home free yet. I’m trying to let hope win, though, and think positively.

Today at clinic, we were once again accompanied by Ms. Donna, who is videotaping Tanner’s clinic visits for a fundraising video for the hospital. It’s sort of like being on a reality show. Tanner had a little bit of a hard time acting like herself today with the camera there, but forgot about them long enough to sing “Day by Day” with the music therapist in the infusion room. She asked me to sing with her at first, then got confident and asked me to stop singing with her (lol) so she could take her act solo. She is singing that song in her performance tomorrow and she has a solo at the beginning of the song.

We had a sobering moment in the waiting room before being taken back. A little boy, maybe 5 years old, walked through the waiting room. His hair was gone and he had that familiar gray look kids get when they are taking a ton of chemo. He also had a feeding tube taped to his cheek and I detected a familiar little limp that told me the chemo was affecting his legs. Tanner watched him walk through and then looked at me and said, “That boy is taking everything.” I nodded and watched a look pass over her face that a 7-year-old shouldn’t have. In that fleeting moment, I knew she understood the seriousness of this cancer business, the gravity of the potential consequences of this disease and it’s treatment. I pulled her to me and hugged her tight with tears in my eyes. And then it was gone. She giggled and said, “Stop squeezing me!” The child was back.

Love,
Beth