Benefit

In October our friends found out their four year old son, N, had Leukemia. This news hit like a ton of bricks and sent us spinning into a surreal protective mode. Protective of our own babies, holding them a little tighter but also protective of our friends, trying to find ways we could help their family through this trauma.

One of the ways we decided to help was through organizing a benefit for their family to help pay for expenses related to their years of treatment ahead. I had never been to a benefit but our planning team had some really fun ideas that we would hoped would raise a little cash.

We planned a carnival theme event with a chili/hot dog meal and a live and silent auction. We quickly realized that we might have bit off a little more than we could chew but after a lot of hard work and lots of planning it turned out to be a fabulous success.

To be honest, it probably required just as much if not more planning than my wedding! We planned for 500 people and I only had 200 people at our wedding. There was more than one night where I lay in bed thinking, "what are we going to do about this? and who's going to do this? and what about this?" So my lists grew longer and longer and I found it to be surprisingly energizing to check off those lists one by one.

A large part of the benefit required asking for donations of all sorts, time, resources, items, money. Normally this intimidates me but in this case I so strongly believed in the cause that I didn't feel a need to apologize as I asked for things. I was giving people an opportunity to be a part of something beautiful and it was so cool to see how generous people can be.

The event itself went off without a hitch (well, ok, I guess we had a few minor hitches). The community really came out to support our friends and the final count raised was above $17,000!! It was so inspiring to see so many people come out to be a part of something that allowed our friends to be able to take one major concern (finances) out of the equation over the course of the next several years.

N was not able to come to the event. It would have been too risky for his health to be at such an event but his parents were both able to come and I could sense the resigned, overwhelmed look on both their faces. It's not fair that children have to endure such atrocities and for one evening we were able to celebrate good instead of succumbing to the bad.

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Cody

Whew, you know it's been a long time since you blogged when you can't figure out how to log in to your own blog! My extended sabbatical from blogging was much enjoyed but I've been getting an itch to write lately so I thought I'd try to pick it back up for a bit. So much has happened since my last little video I almost don't know where to start!

One of the biggest events in our family's past months has been saying goodbye to our seven year old dog, Cody. Sometime in March he started being choosy about his food which is very unlike our typical greedy lab. We always know when something is wrong with him when he stops eating. But he was still acting so happy and like his normal self otherwise we didn't give it much thought. After a few weeks of that we tried switching dog food thinking maybe he was just getting older and bored of his dog chow. He liked the switch initially but within a week he was back to his old ways.

One day I happened to come across some of his heart-worm pills from last year and realized I had forgotten to give him several months worth. I immediately panicked thinking my negligence had probably given our dog heart-worm disease and asked hubby to take him to the vet immediately for a heart-worm test.

The vet thought he looked very healthy (they always gush over what a beautiful dog he is) but ran the test anyway and took some blood just to rule out any other infections, etc.

The next day my mom was down for a visit and we were eating our favorite fare when she's here, McDonald's. Hubby came home from work for lunch and asked if he could talk to me in the bedroom. I knew something wasn't right and my heart started pumping wondering what bad news I was about to receive. He quietly choked out the words, "Cody has cancer."

I hate to admit that my first thought was, "Oh, great, how much is this going to cost us?" Cody has a way of acquiring strange injuries, illnesses that cost just enough to hurt the pocketbook but not enough to actually consider not having treatment done. So my initial thoughts were, he probably needs a lump removed or something that will cost a few hundred dollars.

But then as my ears were ringing and my hands grew cold with sweat, I heard hubby say things like, "the vet is pretty concerned...it could be leukemia...his counts are really high...it doesn't look good..."

The vet suggested we take him to an oncologist at the U of I to determine what kind of cancer it was so we scheduled an appt. for the next day. Our vet was certain it was leukemia but there were two types of leukemia that she couldn't determine between as to which it was. We learned as we talked to the Dr. at U of I, there are two types of leukemia, acute and chronic. If it had been chronic we could have popped him a pill and given him another three good years to live, if it was acute the prognosis is not good.

We waited there most of the day to receive the results that it was indeed acute. The vet said he had a matter of weeks to live and that his decline would be rapid.

Sad does not begin to describe how we felt when we received this news. He was only 7 so we thought we had at least another 3-4 years left with him. He was still acting so happy and besides some restlessness and loss of appetite one would never know he was sick!

We both knew we couldn't watch him deteriorate so after a day or two of thought and as he grew more and more restless and unable to sleep we decided to have him put to sleep just three days after his diagnosis. Cody has always been a silent sufferer (as my mom so aptly puts it) so his unwillingness to even lay down was a pretty good indication of his discomfort.

We made a bucket list for our beloved family member and took him swimming one last time, one last hike through the woods, let him eat noodles and rice and pretty much whatever he wanted. He lived every dog's dream for about two days and then we said goodbye.

It was probably the second hardest day of my life next to our miscarriage. Cody was actually added to our family largely in response to our infertility 7 years ago. In a lot of ways he was our first baby, named after the restaurant where hubby and I had our first date, taken on family vacations and camping trips, a healing and therapeutic presence during a lot of our marriage. His scruff and soft coat soaked up a lot of tears and his big floppy ears heard a lot of lamenting over the course of his life.

I miss him. I miss hearing his collar jingle when the kids have been napping too long and he's anxious for them to wake up and play again. I miss feeling his happy wags that left a bit of a welt and could knock down anything less than twenty pounds whenever we came home after being gone. I miss the security I felt running with a gigantic black dog. I miss watching W chase him relentlessly around the back yard hearing both of them bark at cars as they drive by. I miss seeing him tolerantly wearing jewelry and dress up clothes as L smiles up at me in pride of her creativity.

But mostly I just miss our friend.

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