Together we can make a difference! Your generous gift will further important research and improve the quality of patients lives and their families.
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Lehigh Valley & Phila Area Hike for Discovery Team |
May
We are back! I’m finally sitting down to update everyone on our final hike.
Thank you all for your support! Together our LV & Phila Hike for Discovery Team raised around $60,000 and then another 40 hikers from the Phoenix area, Alaska and Washington, that joined us for the hike, brought the total to a quarter of a million dollars for blood cancer research and patient support. So as you think what can one person do? You can begin to see that together, if we each do what we feel we are called to do, we can make a difference and have a significant impact for the common good. So again I want to thank each of you for your generous donations and sacrifice.
Now for a few highlights from our trip:
On Thursday morning we left bright and early to catch a flight to Phoenix. Then some of us boarded the plane after an hour+ delay, than we got off the plane, due to a problem with the hydraulics, then we waited about 4 hours for another plane. (I’m glad the pilots decided that there was a problem before we took off and not after.)
We stayed in Phoenix for the night and got up the next morning to travel to the Grand Canyon. On the way we stopped at Sedona for lunch and to stretch our legs. When we arrived at our hotel we were greeted with a warm reception, meal and Native American dancing, then off to bed to get up at 4 am so we could be to breakfast at 4:45, and a bus ride to the Canyon. (Not everyone had to be at breakfast at 4:45 some groups started at 6:15)
We boarded our bus left for a ten minute ride to north and pulled up in front of the Bright Angel Lodge and walked through the lobby through the back side and when we exited the lodge I realized that I was actually looking at the Grand Canyon, albeit a very small view of it. We had 3 very good guides from the Walking Connection, Susie, Allan and Travis who took us into the canyon, on the Bright Angel Trail. We hiked about a 1 ½ miles down the trail. Each turn there was something new to see, including a rare encounter with some big horn sheep. Then we hiked back up and walked along the rim for several more miles.
If anyone would like to join the Hike for Discovery Program please let me know and I can give you some more information. They are looking for people now to hike this fall.
It’s a great way to do something for others and join a group of like minded people you will enjoy spending time with.
Again – thanks for your support! You have truly made a difference in the life of someone else.
April
Just 10 more days and we will be heading west to hike in the Grand Canyon. Usually you see my daughter Trisha's picutre here but I've taken off her picture so you can see our Hike for Discovery Team. Together we have raised almost $57,000 with a goal of $100,000. We have each made a commitment to raise a minimum of $4,000 some of us have reached the summit others are near the top. We will continue to raise money for LLS until the end of May through this website and through a whitewater rafting trip that will be held Memorial Day Weekend.
Please scroll down to find 5 Ways you can make a difference
If you can change your home page you can change a life! http://cure.myfundrazor.org
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March
Leukemia is the #1 cause of cancer related deaths for children, for me this is not just a statistic. At 4 years of age, my daughter Trisha was diagnosed with Acute Lymphatic Leukemia(ALL), and we entered an unfamiliar world of children with bald heads, puffy faces, blood counts, spinal taps, and treatments that posed an immediate risk of death verses a long drawn out death.
A strange new world
Entering Children's Hospital of Philadelphia left me woozy. Trisha shared a room with 5 other children ranging in age from 2 – 16. The oldest boy in her room was undergoing a treatment which would keep him in the hospital for six weeks. Six-weeks? I couldn't imagine staying there in the hospital for six weeks at a time and thought we were fortunate because we were told Trisha's treatment would only be 2 weeks.
When Trisha was diagnosed with ALL we were told we were lucky, she was a girl and she was the right age. The chances of remission were good. But after the first round of chemotherapy she still had not gone into remission, so another treatment was chosen, again no results. Then the treatment that would keep her in the hospital for six-weeks began. But six weeks stretched into more than 2 months and included severe complications she almost died from. But she was in remission and we were glad to leave the hospital with her alive.
Now with this milestone reached her doctors informed us that because Trisha's form of Leukemia was so resistant to treatment they were certain her condition would be only temporary and in a short period of time she would relapse. Our option, a bone marrow transplant. We were told that with a bone marrow transplant she would have 50/50 odds of surviving 5 years, with out it her odds of survival were none. So our family was tested to determine if one of us could be her bone marrow donor. Trisha's 3 year old brother Shuan was a match.
On Mothers' Day in 1981 we admitted Trisha to Johns Hopikins Universiy Hospital to begin her bone marrow transplant. Trisha received extensive chemotherapy and total body radiation to destroy her own blood supply. After that was completed Shaun was admitted to the hospital to remove bone marrow from his hip bones. If all went well we were expecting to leave for home 100 days post transplant. But on August 20th, eighty days post transplant after many complications, Trisha's fight for life ended due to a massive infection.
Coping with loss
In the realm of the soul I imagine the death of a child is like loosing an arm or a leg. You can make adjustments to accommodate the shock and loss, but things will never be the same. One of the things that helped me face the future were Trisha's two younger brothers Shaun and Philip and a third brother Kevin who I found out was on his way about one week after we entered Johns' Hopkins for Trisha's transplant. And then 4 years later we were blessed with another daughter, Britany.
Responding to loss and trauma
Extended family, friends and strangers are vital to the support of a family experiencing the trauma and upset of taking care of a child with Leukemia and that is why I am asking for your help. I am taking part in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's adventure program called Hike for Discovery. I am one of 20 volunteer hikers from the Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley area who have committed to raise a minimum of $4,000 each, with a team goal of $200,000. We need your help to reach this goal and provide funding for research and patient care for over 747,000 children and adults affected by blood cancer and their families.
I am hiking in memory of: My daughter Trisha; Rev Robert Johnson, my uncle; Kelly Pomrinke, my daughter in-law Kerry's friend, a mom who died from Leukemia at Thanksgiving; Allene Froehlich's son Peter who died from Hodgkins Lymphoma.
If you would like to make a donation in memory of a family member or friend I will: 1) Donate $10 in their honor and 2) Place their name on a ribbon attached to my back pack.
For information about leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers or you need patient support please visit the www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/hm_lls
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5 Ways you can make a difference
1) Donate on line (return to top of page)
2) Change your home page - Change a life! Each time you shop through this Virtual Mall, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will receive 2% to 40% of the sale for sending business to these merchants. Also use the Google Search on our GOPAGE and LLS will receive money from Internet advertisers. Change your home page now: http://cure.myfundrazor.org
3) Subscribe to a magazine: http://www.magfundraising.com/LLS-Hike-for-a-cure
4) Give blood: without blood, cancer patients cannot survive the disease or treatments http://www.giveapint.org/
5) Email this link to 5 friends: http://www.active.com/donate/hfdepa/hfdWSmith
We are making progress!
The leukemia death rate for children 0-14 years of age in the United States has declined 61 percent over the past three decades. Despite this decline, leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children under age 20.
Thank you for your support!
+++++++++++++++++ February
"Row, row, row, your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...Life is Tough."
"Life is tough?" Where did my 4 year old daughter Trisha come up with that version of Row Your Boat? I couldn't imagine, we were living on the family farm, nothing too tough going on. But it was only a week or two after I heard her singing this little song, that I began to realize just how tough life could get.
Our Lives Change Forever
Trisha had been playing outside and when she came in her legs looked really dirty so I took her upstairs to give her a bath and wash the dirt off. But after scrubbing for awhile I realized her legs weren’t coming clean. As I looked closer I realized they weren't dirty but bruised. Her legs were just a series of black and blue marks, one on top of the other.
I called our family doctor and after he examined her, he sent us to a group of oncologists for blood tests. Her results came back and she had ALL (Acute Lymphatic Leukemia.)
14 months later, after a series of treatments and hospital stays that sometimes lasted for months, not just days or weeks, and a bone marrow transplant, Trisha's fight with this dreaded disease ended.
You're Not Alone
How do you get through “tough times” like this? God and the special people he places in your life to help you get through the "tough" times. It’s the only way. You can't do it by yourself. I will be forever be grateful for the many people who helped us, both family and friends from our church, who generously and willingly supported us by driving us to appointments, babysitting my 2 little boys, preparing meals, sending cards of encouragement and gifts, the list just goes on and on.
This is why I have decided to join Hike For Discovery, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's adventure fundraising program.
Thank you for your generous support!
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