Day 1 of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Now My Everything, My Daughter, My Missy Moo, My Sweet Beautiful Ashley Is Gone. Her Life Taken Way Too Soon. Our Lives Sent Into A FOREVER Pain, Misery, Heartache, HELL.
We Can't Keep Looking The Other Way. Don't Wait Until It's Your Child Or Grandchild. DO SOMETHING NOW.
Today is September 1st, the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! You won’t see Gold Ribbons throughout the grocery stores and few will be sporting Gol...d Shirts or Shirt’s with the Gold Ribbon throughout the Month of September. You will however start to see the Pink Throughout the grocery stores starting today (if not already since the beginning of August) and you may even see other business’s doing something to show their support for breast cancer. It is wonderful that breast cancer gets so much support, but this is OUR CHILDREN”S Month and They Deserve the Awareness and Support from all of us and all the business’s! It is Astonishing to me how hard us parent’s must work to get our CHILDREN who are “Fighting for Their Lives” the Awareness & Funding they need to “SURVIVE”! I have to say that friends, family and many in my community have really helped to increase the level of awareness! But not enough people and it needs to reach way beyond our local communities! It needs to be Nation Wide! It needs to be World Wide! I am not going to rest until Every Single American Knows what the Gold Ribbon stands for! Until Football Players Wear the Gold Ribbon on their Sleeves in the Month of September! Until Cereals, Yogurt’s, Granola Bars & Other Snacks (All of which we buy for OUR CHILDREN) Start displaying the Gold Ribbon on their products and making donations to Childhood Cancer Foundations. I am DETERMINED to reach these goals if it takes me the rest of my life to do so! You can help too and a start for that would be to Purchase a Yard Sign from the AshleyCan Pediatric Cancer Foundation and Display it in your Yard or in Front of your Business for the month of September! Signs will run $9.50 to 12.50 depending on how many we purchase. If you live out of town we can mail it and I will post delivery costs as soon as I can get them from the post office. These signs will be able to be used every year! We just came up with this idea on Friday so we are already getting a late start so please let me know if you are interested in purchasing one. We will order them on Tuesday! The other way to show your support is to change your profile picture to something representing Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! That cost ABSOLUTLY NOTHING!!!!!!
Every day I will talk about a child I know who has faced this cancer battle! Of course I will start with my Daughter Ashley and she will also get September 5th as that will be her 22nd Birthday!!!
It is fitting that Ashley was born in the Month of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month as this young lady spends a great deal of her life supporting the cause and in fact is going to school to work in Pediatric Oncology! Ashley as many of you all know was diagnosed with Ependymoma on June 4, 2001. She was 9 years old. Ashley was your typical 9 year old little girl. She was finishing up third grade and just began her 3rd year of softball. One day when I picked her up from school she said to me in a very sad voice, “Mommy, there is this boy in my grade who has a brain tumor, he is really sick and he lost all his hair because of treatment.” Then a few weeks later as I was dropping her off at school a little boy got out of the car in front of us. Ashley said, “Mommy that is the boy I was telling you about, that is Adrian, he is the boy who has a brain tumor.” Ashley got out of the car and I got all teary eyed and I thought to myself, “That poor little boy and my gosh his poor mom and dad, I could never handle anything like that.” About a month later Ashley was diagnosed with her brain tumor. Adrian passed away when Ashley was in the hospital recovering from her brain surgery. Adrian lived in our subdivision and in the next few years two more children from our subdivision would be diagnosed with cancer. With Ashley that was a total of 4 children in our subdivision alone. I know that one of them passed away before graduating from 8th grade.
On the day we received the news about Ashley’s brain tumor our world forever changed and what we knew as NORMAL would no longer be! Now we had to tell our 9 year old little girl that she had CANCER. Mike started to tell her and broke down in tears. Ashley looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, “Mommy what is the matter with me.” She knew it was something serious if Daddy was crying because Daddy never cries. That day was the first and only day she ever cried in reference to her cancer. For twelve years, of which she faced a second diagnoses at the age of 16, she has been the bravest, most determined, & strongest person I have ever met. She never shed a tear, never asked why me, never complained about having a surgery, about being poked, about test after test, about losing her hair, or puking her guts out. She never complained that she missed out on so much including 3 years of High School and playing the two sports she loved, Softball & Soccer! She doesn’t complain that she has a limp on her right side. She is now however brought to tears when she goes to St. Jude events and talks about St. Jude and what they have done for her. (I will tell you more about the Amazing Ashley Montgomery on September 5th).
PLEASE help us in our Fight to Find a Cure and in Our Goal to Make September, “CHILHOOD CANCER AWRENESS MONTH” recognized Nation Wide. Change your Profile Picture Today and Purchase a Yard Sign!!!! Let the Children know “They Count Too”!
•Childhood cancers are the #1 disease killer of children - more than asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined.
•On the average, 1 in every 4 elementary school has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are a current or former cancer patient. In the U.S., about 46 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer every weekday.
•While the cancer death rate has dropped more dramatically for children than for any other age group, 2,300 children and teenagers will die each year from cancer.
It is fitting that Ashley was born in the Month of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month as this young lady spends a great deal of her life supporting the cause and in fact is going to school to work in Pediatric Oncology! Ashley as many of you all know was diagnosed with Ependymoma on June 4, 2001. She was 9 years old. Ashley was your typical 9 year old little girl. She was finishing up third grade and just began her 3rd year of softball. One day when I picked her up from school she said to me in a very sad voice, “Mommy, there is this boy in my grade who has a brain tumor, he is really sick and he lost all his hair because of treatment.” Then a few weeks later as I was dropping her off at school a little boy got out of the car in front of us. Ashley said, “Mommy that is the boy I was telling you about, that is Adrian, he is the boy who has a brain tumor.” Ashley got out of the car and I got all teary eyed and I thought to myself, “That poor little boy and my gosh his poor mom and dad, I could never handle anything like that.” About a month later Ashley was diagnosed with her brain tumor. Adrian passed away when Ashley was in the hospital recovering from her brain surgery. Adrian lived in our subdivision and in the next few years two more children from our subdivision would be diagnosed with cancer. With Ashley that was a total of 4 children in our subdivision alone. I know that one of them passed away before graduating from 8th grade.
On the day we received the news about Ashley’s brain tumor our world forever changed and what we knew as NORMAL would no longer be! Now we had to tell our 9 year old little girl that she had CANCER. Mike started to tell her and broke down in tears. Ashley looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, “Mommy what is the matter with me.” She knew it was something serious if Daddy was crying because Daddy never cries. That day was the first and only day she ever cried in reference to her cancer. For twelve years, of which she faced a second diagnoses at the age of 16, she has been the bravest, most determined, & strongest person I have ever met. She never shed a tear, never asked why me, never complained about having a surgery, about being poked, about test after test, about losing her hair, or puking her guts out. She never complained that she missed out on so much including 3 years of High School and playing the two sports she loved, Softball & Soccer! She doesn’t complain that she has a limp on her right side. She is now however brought to tears when she goes to St. Jude events and talks about St. Jude and what they have done for her. (I will tell you more about the Amazing Ashley Montgomery on September 5th).
PLEASE help us in our Fight to Find a Cure and in Our Goal to Make September, “CHILHOOD CANCER AWRENESS MONTH” recognized Nation Wide. Change your Profile Picture Today and Purchase a Yard Sign!!!! Let the Children know “They Count Too”!
•Childhood cancers are the #1 disease killer of children - more than asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined.
•On the average, 1 in every 4 elementary school has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are a current or former cancer patient. In the U.S., about 46 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer every weekday.
•While the cancer death rate has dropped more dramatically for children than for any other age group, 2,300 children and teenagers will die each year from cancer.
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