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

March 3, 2013

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. Mattie went through his donut phase, his vanilla shake phase, his potato chip craze, and his mac and cheese moments. This particular photo captures his next food of choice..... chicken fingers and french fries. I have no idea what it personally feels like to be on chemotherapy, but I saw how it wrecked havoc on Mattie's body and appetite. Therefore whatever Mattie craved to eat, he got! Mattie was assigned a nutritionist at the hospital who tried to present him with a balanced diet. But between the challenges faced within the hospital's kitchen and Mattie's stomach, Mattie ate NO hospital foods! AT ALL! Anything Mattie ate came from outside the hospital. At first I was concerned about Mattie's diet, but then I realized the diet was the very least of our problems. Mattie's battle with cancer helped put so much of life into context for Peter and I, and frankly even though the battle maybe technically over, what I observed and lived through remains a part of us.


Quote of the day: Reality continues to ruin my life.  ~ Bill Watterson


Peter and I had a very slow day. Both of us seem very tired. Peter worked a six day week and really needed down time today. Whereas, I am exhausted but can not sleep at night. I have bouts of insomnia and this week is one of those times. It doesn't matter how busy or active I am by day, when it comes to sleeping I remain wide awake. This is definitely a post-cancer phenomenon. Prior to Mattie getting cancer I could sleep anywhere and at any time of day. In fact, Peter and I have changed roles. He now can sleep anywhere and he is out like a light.

Living in a hospital and dealing with Mattie's cancer impacted my whole life mentally and physically. However, sleeping is just one of many long-term effects of surviving Mattie's cancer. I have mentioned this before on the blog, and people think I am joking, until you see the problem for yourself. I can no longer read any kind of print with any noise around me. This is a problem and a limiting one, because I can't read a book out in public and I most certainly can't read a document that is given to me within a meeting. Anything that I have to read and process, must come before me ahead of time so that I can read it in absolute silence. Otherwise, I can read the words but I have NO comprehension of what I am reading. This is a new problem. Prior to Mattie's cancer, I could read, talk, and listen to the TV or the radio all at the same time. Now I get sensory overload quickly and my brain just shuts down.

I very much appreciate the comments I have gotten on the blog recently, and I am comforted to know that others feel like me or understand the frustrations and anger I experience after losing Mattie to cancer. Naturally it doesn't make any of us who lost a child to cancer feel any better, but it does give us the insight that we aren't crazy and we aren't alone.

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