Category Archives: Lily

Lemonade and a Cookie… 50 cents

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lemonad stand 001August 8, 2009 Since when do kids make $18 from a lemonade stand?!!! I don’t ever remember making more than about two bucks and splitting it with my best friend, Carol.

My friend Ashley had a list of things her kids wanted to do this summer and having a lemonade stand was one of the items that hadn’t been checked off. Since school starts Monday, time was a wastin’ and she invited us to help. The kids made a poster, I made the lemonade, Ashley made sugar cookies and we met yesterday in the median between our houses under the shade of some trees. Then, those girls got to work flagging down cars. Even Jake handed out some cookies. Almost every neighbor that drove by stopped and were generous tippers. They had a ton of fun and when we counted up the kitty, they made $18, split three ways!

Tanner, Jake and I had been to Pinkerton Park earlier that day for a bike ride and a picnic in the shade. It was 91 degrees by the time we got there and I noticed the first signs of the Vincristine creeping in. Tanner got hot quickly and, even though she rode quite a while, the heat eventually got the best of her and I had to send her crying to sit with Jake under the pavilion while I put the bikes back in the car and got our lunch.

The chemo has also started effecting her sense of taste. She handed me a pack of gum she just bought today and said, “It tastes yucky!” Tanner loves gum so I know the chemo changed the way it tastes. And, her medicine “burned” her mouth today, which is also some weird side effect of the Vincristine. That particular chemo has a list of side effects a mile long, and unfortunately, is our mainstay chemo for the next two years.

I got to spend a little one-on-one with Jake today for the first time in a while. I took him to the YMCA pool and we had the best time. Tanner can’t go into a public pool like that so I felt bad taking him and not her, but he needed to spend some time in a pool where he can actually reach the bottom. Tanner and John went for ice cream and to the dollar store to spend her lemonade stand earnings (that 6 bucks was burning a hole in her pocket).

John and I sat on the sofa last night and looked through the fan list for Tanner’s Fcebook page (Friends of Tanner). She has 497 fans and after more than an hour, we finally gave up trying to figure out how all those people know us and went to bed feeling blessed and loved. It boggles my mind that between the facebook fans and those that read the blog directly from www.tanner.celiamusic.net, there are probably 800 or more people wishing us well. We feel all those positive thoughts and prayers and thank you all every day for your support. Some day soon, I hope to use all that support to make difference and save some other family from going through this horror.

And, speaking of all that support, thanks to everyone who prayed for our friend Lily. Lily made counts this week and will be starting school next week on the first day… just like everyone else! Amen.

Love,
Beth

Monkey Business

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Kim, me and Beth relaxing at dinner

Kim, me and Beth relaxing at dinner

August 4, 2009 I’m back! It was a great weekend! We went to a big, beautiful cabin in the mountains of Asheville, NC. Lots of lounging, shopping, eating, laughing, girl talk, sleeping, more lounging, free flowing wine and a beautiful view of the smokies to boot. We spent much of our time trying to think of names for Kim’s two goldendoodle puppies that she will bring home soon. “Rhett and Scarlet” and “Brandy and Whiskey” were Kim’s favorites, although Beth and I maintain that no matter what she decides, we are calling them “Jethro and Ellie Mae.” After all, we were in the “hills, that is.”

Wouldn’t have been such a great time without Beth and Kim and wouldn’t have been possible without my awesome husband and mother-in-law at home taking care of the kids.

I did miss the kids, though and I was happy to be home. Things seemed to go very well at while I was gone. I think the backpack making party and barbecue afterward was the highlight for Tanner. Everyone seemed to have a good time and they made a lot of backpacks to boot. I love this picture of them. Tanner and Jake look like they had a huge time, as usual. Thanks to our church family for making this possible for Tanner.

Tanner, Jake and Friends make backpacks for the needy

Tanner, Jake and Friends make backpacks for the needy


This week has been a nice break from the normally restrictive nature of our outings. With Tanner’s counts at an almost normal level (although her immune system is still more compromised than normal), we were able to cautiously get out a little more. We ate last night at Pie in the Sky restaurant where the kids get to play with pizza dough while they wait for their pizza. Then, this morning I took the kids to Opry Mills mall to buy new shoes and go to the Rainforest Cafe. Normally, this is a huge hit, but it was nearly a bust today. I forgot to bring Tanner a sweater and she was so cold I wrapped a paper napkin around her shoulders while Jake spent the whole time very nervous that the animatronic monkeys were going to leave their perch and attack us. He didn’t even eat since he had his fingers stuck in his ears the whole time saying, “It’s too woud” over and over again. When we threw in the towel and decided to take the food with us and eat it in the car on the way home, he said, “Wets get out of here!” Tanner and I laughed about that the whole way home.

This afternoon Tanner had her friend, Isabella, over for a playdate. They made a hair salon in the bathroom and washed each other’s hair and then put on an impressive show for John, Jake and I complete with dancing, piano, acting and singing. Tanner sang the national anthem. It was quite a patriotic moment.

We’ve been incorporating some of the play therapist’s suggestions into handling Tanner and it does appear to be improving things. There are less tantrums, and although she is definitely still angry, she seems to be able to better get hold of herself. She went to talk with the therapist today. I won’t find out what they talked about until next week, but Tanner had a good time and wants to go back so that’s a good sign. Hopefully, she’ll be able to unload a little anger at these sessions and we can find a way to talk to her about this whole rotten thing. It would be nice to be her partner in this instead of her punching bag.

Poor Jake has definitely started to feel the tension in the house and is acting out as well. (I’m just waiting for the dog to rebel next!) It just breaks my heart. He is the sweetest little thing ever and it’s not in his nature to act this way. Thankfully, he’s pretty easy to deal with and I’m hoping a little visit to Grandmom and Grandad’s next week might give him the undivided attention he deserves. It’s hard for a little fella to not get lost in all this, and we need to remember that his needs are just as important as Tanner’s even if she is sick.

Tomorrow is another landmark in this long journey. It is the last day of Consolidation, the second of five phases of treatment Tanner will endure over 2 1/2 years. It’s also probably the last day we’ll have for a while that she’ll be feeling this good. Thursday, provided her counts remain above 750, which I assume they will, we will start Interim Maintenance. That day, August 6, will mark the first day of exactly two years of remaining treatment. They count it from the first day of Interim Maintenance and go two years to the day from then. Crazy how they know exactly how long to treat leukemia to give you the best chance of avoiding a relapse.

Again, please pray for Tanner’s friend Lily. She has only a week to get her counts up high enough to start school on-time and still isn’t there yet. I just know from our experience how important it would be to her to be there on that first day and to be part of the class from the start. This is so hard for these children… not something an 8-year-old or a six-year-old should have to worry about.

Love,
Beth

Disheartening

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July 25, 2009 What is worse than renting a storage unit, decluttering your house, moving all the clutter into a storage unit, and painting, caulking and patching your house to ready it for sale?

Moving all the clutter back into your house without ever having moved.

John and I stood today at the open door of that storage unit and stared glumly at the “clutter” in it, completely disheartened. We had a contract on a house we loved when Tanner was diagnosed with leukemia and got out of it because it was the right thing to do. It’s still the right thing to do, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

This was a house with a huge, park like backyard with mature shade trees that backed up to a lake on which you could fish or canoe. It was in a neighborhood with lots of kids and a playground just four houses down the lakefront from ours. It almost didn’t matter what the house looked like; the yard made up for any fault we could find with it. But, we loved the house, too. It was a little bigger than the one we have, but not too big, and had an unfinished basement like the one I grew up with, where you could ride a bike or a scooter or roller skate on a rainy or cold day. It was the house we were never going to move from (and that’s saying a lot for us; we’re serial movers). When I picture it in my mind, I picture the kids running, hand in hand through the yard and Tanner turning toward us to say, “Please, please can we buy this house?” the way she did the day we took them to see it.

It was just one more in a series of disappointments for her that we didn’t buy this house. We told her it had radon (which it did, but they fixed) so she would never know we didn’t buy it because of her. Not only would moving have been the straw that broke our backs during this stressful time, it would have meant a change in schools for Tanner, a fact that the social workers agreed would have been devastating. Nothing like being the new kid at school… entering halfway through the year… with no hair.

Since then, both of us have admitted to each other that we have driven by the house we were going to buy, looked it up on the Internet to see if it had sold to someone else and checked intermittently to see if another house had popped up for sale on the same lake. It’s just been hard to let go. Even though a new house seems completely unimportant when compared to your child getting leukemia, it still bothers us. For me, that house represents the life we could have had without leukemia and I long for it.

Today, I think both of us were able to let that house go. The thankless task of moving this clutter back to our house got easier as we got moving. We even pulled aside a considerable pile to give to goodwill; after all we have lived just fine without this stuff for months now. And, I’m grateful that we did the painting, patching and caulking that we did on our house… it needed it and we needed a deadline.

We’ve tabled the idea of moving until we get through at least the next 4-6 months of chemo and see how it goes. And, I know we’ll find another house with a beautiful yard.

Still, it won’t be the one we lost, that we dreamed about as a family. That one is gone. It is just one more casualty of childhood cancer.

Tanner, however, will not be lost. We will continue to fight the fight, even on the days when we have to do it for her… even on the days when she fights us, instead of the cancer. I refuse to let cancer take anything else from my family.

Childhood cancer takes so much from so many. Please pray for all the kids who face this disease… for Thomas, the teenager we met the other day; for Lily, our 8-year-old friend who is fighting to get her counts up so she can start school on day one this year, with all the other kids; for Kinsee, who bravely endures the grinding chemo schedule that her rare early T-cell leukemia demands; and for the countless other kids we have yet to meet who battle this insidious disease every day.

And, if you need any “clutter,” drop by our garage. I have a feeling that stuff might stay there for a while.

Love,
Beth

P.S. Have I mentioned in all these novellas that I write nightly, how important it is to have a good partner when you are going through something like this? How I don’t know how anyone could do this alone? How I don’t know how I could do this without John? I am so fortunate to have someone who recognizes the strain of spending every day immersed in this disease and who goes above and beyond every day to make it easier for me in any way possible. A weak marriage would never survive. It’s easy to turn on each other in the heat of the situation, and believe me, we’ve done it at times. But, all-in-all John and I make good partners; we always have. We divvy up the extra responsibility of this disease, and, if I’m being honest, John does more than his part. He is strong where I can’t be and, hopefully, I’m able to return the favor when he needs it. He has arranged, in cohorts with my two best girlfriends, a 3-day trip next weekend and is sending the three of us away while he and his Mom take care of the kids. Who has a husband like this?!!! I do, I do!!! Lucky me.

It’s Just What People Do

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July 11, 2009 Several weeks ago, I received an email from a friend in West Tennessee letting me know that an 8-year-old girl in his neck of the woods was just diagnosed with ALL. He passed on her Caring Bridge site address and I’ve checked in on her periodically since. Her name is Kinsee and she has T-cell ALL, which I knew to be more rare and more difficult to treat than most B-cell ALL’s (Tanner has pre-B cell ALL). This means a more aggressive treatment plan and a lower success rate. I was so sad for this family, but was captivated by the spunk of this little girl. She often writes her own journal entries, which hilariously, are all about food, since she is still on the aggressive steroids Tanner just finished.

Tanner and I pray every night for Kinsee, our friend Lily who is 8 and has pre-b ALL just like Tanner, and Bill Johnson, an adult fan of “Friends of Tanner,” who is going through cancer treatment. These are our known friends with cancer and we feel an odd kinship with them, though we have never met Bill or Kinsee.

Tonight, I went to Kinsee’s journal to check in on her progress. It had been a while and so I read back through a couple of weeks’ entries. My heart sunk. It has been determined that Kinsee has a very rare type of T-cell leukemia, known as “early” T-cell leukemia. I racked my brain, trying to remember if, in all my research about ALL, I had ever come across this type of T-cell ALL. I couldn’t. I googled it and found an press release dated Feb. 2009 saying that St. Jude, in conjunction with some Italian health authorities, have just discovered that this type of leukemia exists. It has previously been lumped in with all T-cell. Sadly, it is associated with a poor prognosis.

John and I sat on the sofa as I read him the press release, so sad for this family and so thankful that we have had such good news for Tanner’s outcomes at every turn. I said to John, “How do you hear that kind of news about your child?” He thought for a moment and said, “I think people probably ask themselves that same question about us.”

I remember hearing for the first time from the doctor that Tanner might have leukemia. It was, literally, inconceivable. She had back pain, not leukemia. We thought maybe kidney stones, appendicitis… but leukemia? It came out of left field and was just the most surreal, unbelievable thing. When the doctor first mentioned it, I was by myself with Tanner in the ER. I waited until John got to the hospital to tell him, because I was afraid he would wreck the car on the way to the hospital if I told him over the phone. When our pediatrician arrived at the hospital that evening and told us to “prepare yourselves for the fact that it is probably leukemia,” I had such a visceral, physical reaction to those words. I sobbed, I shook, my teeth chattered…

But, over the next few days, while we waited for them to rule out any other options and for the results of the bone marrow biopsy, which is the definitive test for leukemia, we slowly began to accept the idea. I couldn’t tell you how… you just do… because you have no choice, really.

So, I imagine this family hearing that their sweet little girl’s prognosis was much worse than they originally thought, reacted much the same… they sobbed, they shook, they shook their fist at God, and then they accepted it… because they have no choice.

When you child is sick, they need you plain and simple. It is the most natural thing in the world to respond to that need; it’s not heroic or extraordinary, it’s just what people do.

There are no Mother Teresa’s here at the Page house. We are just putting one foot in front of the other because we have to, and because, after a period of time, you accept what is in front of you, and this becomes your new normal. We get tired, crabby, fed up, frustrated and exasperated just like all parents do. And, we laugh, play, get silly, and goof off, just like all families do. Cancer doesn’t change that.

With this blog, I try to resolve my feelings at the end of every day. I try to find the bright spot that maybe wasn’t so evident in the thick of the day. I choose to focus on a moment, however small, that was beautiful, or poignant or sad or gutwrenching and pull out of it what was good, or what can be good tomorrow. It’s just how I, personally, handle this situation. You might handle it differently, but you would handle it, nonethless… believe me. It’s just what people do.

Love,
Beth

My superhero

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Today, a little boy from Tanner’s kindergarten class came by to give Tanner an adorable card he made her. On the front, it said “Super Tanner” and had a picture of Tanner flying in a cape. Inside was a sweet note, dictated to his Mom, about how Tanner was a superhero who was going to win the battle against the evil leukemia monster… adorable and so true.

Today, my needle-phobic child who has to take anti-anxiety medicine just to go to the dentist, showed the child life lady a hilarious video of Jake in one of Lily’s pink wigs while the nurse put the IV line into her port. No holding her arms down, no screaming, no crying. A little wimpering after it was all over and a little visible anxiety beforehand, but wow, what a difference. Then, when it was time to take it out, again, no big deal. Last week we had to lay on her legs and hold her arms. Amazing. Tanner Page, my superhero.

It is humbling to discover what a five-year-old can learn to accept. She has accepted that she has cancer, that no matter how repulsive a medicine may taste, the pain relief is worth it, and that she will lose her precious hair. She will accept so many other things that a five-year-old shouldn’t have to accept, but she will be so strong when she finally beats this.

The other day, she asked the question we had been dreading most: “Mom, do people die from leukemia?” I knew this question would eventually come, but didn’t expect it so soon and wasn’t really prepared the way I wanted to be. John and I paused and then I explained that grown ups and little tiny babies get leukemia, too, and that they sometimes die because they can’t fight infection as well, but that kids like her do super with leukemia. This seemed to satisfy her for the moment, but I know the question will come up again, and, eventually, she’ll figure out that some kids do die from leukemia. Then, she will have to accept that, too.

But, I’ll do everything I can to assure she never accepts that SHE might die. No way. I’ve never even considered it ,and I don’t want her too, either. That is not her fate. She is a superhero and superheroes never give up and always beat the bad guy.

Love,
Beth

Baby Steps

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Most of you probably know that Tanner was in the hospital two months ago for a life threatening reaction to Bactrim and, possibly, ehrlichiosis which is a tick-borne illness. She had to be lifeflighted on a Monday night and was gravely ill for several days before being released on Friday afternoon with a course of antibiotics to finish as our only reminder of our time there. Tanner was sad and depressed in the hospital (it doesn’t suit her bubbly nature) and didn’t even want to get out of bed until I made her. But, as soon as we left the hospital, she came alive and never looked back. The next morning, she was playing Wii with friends, refusing to take a nap, and demonstrating jump rope moves for her brother. By Monday, she was back at school with no indication that anything had ever been wrong. Not bad for someone who was on a helicopter with a 50/50 chance just a week earlier.

That is my kind of illness… quick and dirty, with immediate results. I’m not really cut out for stuff that lingers. I like the kind of job where you work harder than everyone else and you see the best results immediately. I could never be a farmer… heck, I can’t even keep the plants the kids give me for mother’s day alive for more than a couple of weeks. All that watering, day in and day out… you get the picture.

So, when Tanner left the hospital after her leukemia diagnosis, I guess in the back of my mind, I thought things would get better… that she would bounce back the way she did before. Not that I was so stupid as to believe she was going to lick leukemia in a few weeks, but I guess I expected there to be some kind of forward motion to her recovery.

There is no forward motion. Only back and forth, up and down, side to side. Anything but consistent forward progress. Cancer has to be one of the only diseases for which the treatment is as bad or worse than the disease itself. The cure that almost kills you, as I like to say.

So, here’s how a typical day goes: Tanner wakes up crying this morning (as she does every morning since taking the steroids), after pain medicine, she feels a little better, eats voluminously and watches TV. She knows that eating too much will hurt her stomach, but its like the pull of the steroids outweighs common sense and she overeats, resulting in an ugly tummy ache. I give her something to help her tummy and then she plays on her computer for a while and helps Jake play on mine. Then, we go upstairs where she lays on the floor and talks to Jake while he plays. When we decide to go downstairs again, she begs for my help getting up off the floor. Even though I want to help, I know she needs to use those muscles and encourage her to do it on her own. This causes a giant temper tantrum (steroids, lack of sleep) that causes me to have to send her to her room where she promptly falls asleep for 2 1/2 hours. After she wakes, we eat more, of course, and go across the street to her friend Corinne’s house. I haven’t told Tanner about this because I know she won’t want to go… it makes her so anxious. As I expect, she balks at going and we arrive with her crying. Poor Corinne looks alarmed, but sweetly asks what’s wrong and invites Tanner to sit on a little couch in the playroom. Within minutes, they are looking at my new iphone and comparing games. They spend the next hour happily drawing and talking together on the sofa. I have to pry her off to go home. The trip home seems like miles. Her legs buckle on the stairs out of the house and she falls onto her bottom. It goes downhill from there. The heat beats her and she is exhausted when we get home. We regroup and have a much-anticipated visit from Lily, an 8-year-old little girl from Franklin who also has pre-b cell ALL and is about 7 months into treatment. It is their first meeting and we were excited to see her. But, the horrible stomach ache returns and Tanner can’t really enjoy the visit the way she wants to. Her stomach gets worse and worse and she can’t eat the McDonalds she wanted so badly all day long. We finally manage to get the right medicine to ease her pain just in time for bedtime.

So, it’s not just one day up and one day down, it’s 15 minutes up and 15 minutes down. You never know when a symptom will creep up and rob her of her personality temporarily. And, even though I know the tests show she’s kicking leukemia’s ass mightily, I don’t see it. I just see a little girl who can be giggling and cutting up one minute and groaning in pain the next.

So, I’m learning to take baby steps. To not expect it to get progressively better each day, but to have faith that it will get better… eventually. I guess I’m going to have to learn how to water a plant every day no matter how slowly it seems to be growing.

Love,
Beth

We’re Home

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Well, we’re home! Came home yesterday afternoon. Tanner was in the worst mood all morning at the hospital, but as soon as we got into the wheel chair to go home, she became her normal self again. Hugged the nurses and thanked them for taking such good care of her, played with her new iTouch in the car on the way home and had a tear-inspiring homecoming reunion with Jake. I thought, “This is going to be so much better than I thought. She’s going to be just fine.

Then, she got tired and took a nap. And woke up screaming, in pain, cranky, etc. My heart sank. The rest of the day was a battle. It’s so hard to know what to do. The physical therapist and doctor say she needs to get up and walk so she doesn’t lose her strength, but she feels so bad. Convincing a 5-year-old to do something they don’t want to do because it is for their own good is futile. So, we feel a little lost. Think I will call a friend whose child has leukemia and see how she coped. Maybe you just grit your teeth and barrel through until the end of this awful steroid course (another 25 LONG days) and hope she is more reasonable after that. She will still take steroids for 5 days a month in the next phase, but not every day like this. These steroids seem to magnify the kids’ worst traits until they act that way all the time. It’s great fun!

One good effect of the steroids is the increase in appetite, but we haven’t come to that yet. She still doesn’t seem to want to eat but one meal a day. I just can’t bear the thought of her losing any more weight. Today, we finally managed to entice her with the idea of a bagel with strawberry cream cheese from Panera. So, off John, his mom and Jake go to Panera to bring it back before she loses her appetite again. Once those steroids start making her ravenous, I’m going to let her eat like a banshee — fatten her up for the next phase.

But, still, it’s nice to be home. No one woke us in the middle of the night to take her vitals, flush her IV or stop the infusion machine from beeping. What a blessing. She was still up quite a bit with pain and nausea, but rested better for sure.

One note: we are flush with gifts for Tanner. People have been so generous. Some she just hasn’t even felt good enough to open. So, again, if you want to do something send a donation in Tanner’s honor to www.lilysgarden.com. Knowing that we might be able to help save some other family from this horror is the best gift we can get.

Love,
Beth

Tanner update 6/2

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Dear Friends:

tanner-curls-with-backpackSo much has happened in the past two very long days.  Let me start by saying thank you to all of you for your prayers, your loving messages, your extraordinary kindnesses and thoughtfulness towards our family in this terrible time for us.  Your emails keep John and I going through the day; we feel wrapped in love at a time when we need it most.

Yesterday was another exhausting day, but Tanner’s surgery to insert the chemo port and her spinal tap went well.  Her spinal fluid showed no leukemia cells, thankfully, but they inject chemo into her spinal fluid either way, though to prevent any cells from forming there.  This &^%^$#!! disease is so hideous that it actually hides in your spinal column since it knows that the chemo injected into her bloostream doesn’t work there.  Your body protects your brain and spinal column so thoroughly, that unless they inject the chemo directly into the spine, the leukemia can hide there and come out later to begin it’s path of destruction once again.  Unbelievable.

Tanner handled yesterday beautifully, and mercifully, emerged from her surgery a new girl.  One of the medicines they have given her to help with the pain finally kicked in after building up in her system for a few days and has made it possible for her to be much more comfortable while still and less tender when moving, although moving is still extremely painful.  That very morning, she was either completely doped up on morphine or she was panting from the excrutiating pain of just lying in her bed; it was heartbreaking.  So, we are so grateful she is a little more comfortable and some of her personality has come back.  She tires easily, though and sleeps often.

Today was the day that Tanner Page, age 5 and three quarters, had to accept that she has cancer.  The endless march of medication, the length of time she will be in the hospital, and, most devestating to her, the fact that she will lose her hair.  She ended the day by refusing to take medication (in only a way that Tanner could refuse!) and then realizing it made no difference whether she refused or not.  Before she went to sleep, she looked up at me with tears streaming down her cheeks and said, “I hate this place and I hate Leukemia.”  Amen to that.

She also had first dose of chemo today, which is oddly anticlimactic.  They just shoot it into the IV line that runs into her port (which feeds directly into the blood vessels leading to her heart) and that’s that.  I didn’t notice any real side effects today except that her food seemed to not taste good to her.

John and I spent the morning trying to digest the treatment plan, which is just so unimaginable.  It seemed like they discussed about a hundred drugs with us, to be administered in every way possible.  We will have honorary medical degrees before this is through.

So, enough said about the awful stuff… here was the good stuff:  my child, head pealed back in hysterical laughter as she snatched the hair off a puppet named Slater to reveal his leukemia inspired bald head; the immeasurable kindess of our friends who are doing things for us we didn’t even realize we needed; a darling little 8-year old named Lily who is friends with one of Tanner’s friends is 7 months into Leukemia treatment and wrote Tanner a note in crayon telling her that chemo is hard but she knows that Tanner can do it; my son saying to me as I left the house (again) this morning, “Mommy come back?” and then running off happily to play with a friend; and the doctors and nurses at this amazing hospital where they have thought of anything and everything a family could ever need and who treat our daughter like she is their own, even though they see this stuff every day.

Forgive me for the length of this post.  It’s ridiculously long, but helps me process this thing that has hit my family and turned our lives upside down.  A good friend has created a blog so that I can keep this up and disseminate information more easily.  You can reach it at http://www.tanner.celiamusic.net.  It will probably post tomorrow.  Thanks, Ron. [editorial: You’re welcome, glad I can do something helpful, — Ron]

One last thing — people keep asking how they can help… right now we have everything we need, but if you want to help us find a way to end this horrible disease, there is one thing you can do.  The little girl I mentioned above has a website, lilysgarden.org, where you can donate money to research for children’s cancer.  Any donations made in Tanner’s honor would be amazing.

Time for bed.
Love,
Beth