Amazing Grace.

Today was a good day, a real good day. Ashton woke and wanted to come into the living room
instead of staying in bed. I take that as a good sign. He does seem a little depressed though.
I don't blame him. One day he fell asleep and the next he woke up with tubes and wires attached and can't do all the things he used to do. I wonder what he thinks happened.

About 6 or 7 years ago my older son, Carter, played baseball and had an amazing
coach who was the most positive and nicest person. His son was also on the team.
At the end of the season we found out that this boy had had brain cancer when he
was younger. I was so interested and amazed with this family and I needed to know
about it because it just touched me so much. This boy's mother's name is Grace.
She told us his whole story and I was just in awe at how well he was doing and
how the family seemed to cherish every moment with their son. While talking
with Grace I found out she was going to school to get her nursing degree. She
had wanted to work with other children battling cancer. I mentioned how I had
always wanted to be a nurse and she said I should go for it now, that is wasn't too
late. I would see her from time to time and ask her how school was going and
she always said it was going great and she just loved it. I decided to try and go
back, I signed up for a couple of classes at Cabrillo, but shortly after I became
pregnant with Ashton, so I dropped them. I remember seeing her at some school
function and letting her know that I was pregnant and was putting nursing
on the back burner. By this time she was almost done and so close to working
in the field of her dreams. Once again, I would see her from time to time and
ask her about work, etc. On November 12th, the worst day of my life, she
was one of the first people who popped into my mind. I tried and tried to call her only
to get a busy signal. Finally about 3 days after Ashton's surgery, I got her
machine and left her a detailed message about what we were going through.
She called back about 5 min. later and was absolutely shocked to find my family
was going through the same things hers did. She came to visit the next day, brought
us a backpack full of goodies for the kids to do and lent me her laptop so I could
post on this blog. She is the one who actually set this blog up for me and posted
the article about helping families with cancer. She came by this morning and
we all had a nice long talk. I feel so blessed to know this woman and to be able
to have her in my life at a time like this. Her son had the same cancer, at the
same age as Ashton and is happy and doing well. He just celebrated 10 years
cancer free. We even have the same Oncologist, Dr. Fisher.
Thank you for being there for us Grace, you're amazing.