Mattie Miracle Walk 2023 was a $131,249 success!

Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to us that you take the time to write to us and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful to us and help support us through very challenging times. To you we are forever grateful. As my readers know, I promised to write the blog for a year after Mattie's death, which would mean that I could technically stop writing on September 9, 2010. However, at the moment, I feel like our journey with grief still needs to be processed and fortunately I have a willing support network still committed to reading. Therefore, the blog continues on. If I should find the need to stop writing, I assure you I will give you advanced notice. In the mean time, thank you for reading, thank you for having the courage to share this journey with us, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.


As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki and Peter



The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation was created in the honor of Mattie.

We are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. We are dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families and medical personnel. Children and their families will be supported throughout the cancer treatment journey, to ensure access to quality psychosocial and mental health care, and to enable children to cope with cancer so they can lead happy and productive lives. Please visit the website at: www.mattiemiracle.com and take some time to explore the site.

We have only gotten this far because of people like yourself, who have supported us through thick and thin. So thank you for your continued support and caring, and remember:

.... Let's Make the Miracle Happen and Stomp Out Childhood Cancer!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

September 30, 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2005. On one of our weekend excursions, Mattie and Peter were looking through and collecting rocks along the shore line. Using the small ones, Peter was teaching Mattie how to skip a stone in the water. I must admit prior to meeting Peter, I never heard this term, much less ever saw someone skip a stone. Mattie was fascinated with stone skipping in the water, and wanted desperately to learn how to throw a stone and get it to skip three or four times on the water's surface like Peter.

Quote of the day: Grief can awaken us to new values and new and deeper appreciations. Grief can cause us to reprioritize things in our lives, to recognize what's really important and put it first. Grief can heighten our gratitude as we cease taking the gifts life bestows on us for granted. Grief can give us the wisdom of being with death. Grief can make death the companion on our left who guides us and gives us advice. None of this growth makes the loss good and worthwhile, but it is the good that comes out of the bad. ~ Roger Bertschausen

As promised, the question of the day is....................................................
Have you voted for Tricia (Mattie's nurse) today?
(Remember you can vote ONCE every 24 hours!!!)

For more information about the Johnson and Johnson Amazing Nurse Contest, please read my September 28, 2011 blog posting. Your daily vote is important and will bring Tricia closer to becoming a finalist.
Click on this link to vote for Patricia Grusholt: http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/157336/voteable_entries

One of the family's at Georgetown University Hospital, who we got to know while Mattie was battling cancer, let us know today that their daughter has a potential recurrence of her cancer. This young lady has been fighting this horrible disease for a while, and she and her family live on a constant roller coaster of emotions. When I learned about this news today I was sickened. This lovely girl and Mattie battled cancer at the same time, and during that time, I had the opportunity to get to know her parents. Her parents were extremely supportive of us and were always in amazement with how we kept it together despite Mattie's intensive surgeries and chemotherapies. Certainly Mattie has been gone from our lives for two years, but I will always remember what Mattie endured treatment wise. His body was exposed to amazing levels of toxicity, and I have no doubt his regimens would have been overwhelming and down right depressing to an adult counterpart. No I am not a medical doctor, but unlike most medical doctors, I have lived cancer 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 15 months, and saw what it did to my son, my life, my marriage, and my future. This personal insight and day to day logging of the process from my perspective gives me a certain level of knowledge that I am sorry... no medical doctor has. For this knowledge can't be captured in a textbook, a journal article, or even through residencies and rounds.

When I learned of this young lady's potential battle with cancer again, it made me feel ill. The thought is simply overwhelming for her and for her family. I can't even begin to highlight the level of fear, of hopelessness, and of the sheer lack of control they all must feel. Living with childhood cancer almost feels like living with a ticking time bomb inside your body, and unfortunately NO one knows when or if it will go off again. Childhood cancer quickly illustrates that our fate is not in our own hands and also shows the vulnerability of the medical profession. Because modern medicine can't solve and CURE childhood cancer. We are conditioned as a westernized society to believe that seeing a doctor will make us feel better and that with medicine our lives will improve. The disheartening reality which families of children with cancer learn is it takes much more than medicine to treat cancer. It is my hope that you will pause tonight and think about this teenager and her family and wish them strength.

Though I went about my day, this news weighed heavily on my mind. I did spend part of the day with Mary and Ann, but then needed to go for a walk to clear my head. I walked over three miles, but it did not do anything for me. But I was determined to enjoy our last day of warm weather before we get hit with Fall weather tomorrow.

I would like to end tonight's posting with a message I received today from Network for Good (our electronic newsletter and walk management site provider). If this message compels you, I urge you to sign the petition which can be found by clicking through the blue link below.
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A group of Senators wants to reduce tax deductions on charitable donations to raise federal revenues.

Tell your Senators and President Obama that you don't want to see charities hurt by this terrible idea.

Making it harder to financially support charitable organizations would severely impact thousands of charities and the Americans that rely on them.
From dispensing nutritious food to poor families to rescuing abused or abandoned animals, charities provide crucial services to those who need help most.

In times of struggle, we need to support charities and the vital work they do, not defund them.

Join Network for Good along with our friends at Care2 and the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) in asking the Senate and the President not to hurt charities by reducing tax deductions on donations.

To sign the petition, go to:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/133/452/331/?z00m=20076595
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