Mattie's Blog and his Fight Against Osteosarcoma

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!

April 30, 2015

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2006. That Memorial Day weekend we took Mattie to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. This was Mattie's first real experience with a water park. He loved Sesame Street and its characters, so when I heard the moms at Mattie's preschool talking about it, I felt that this was something he too would like to explore. Mattie was in LOVE with Elmo back then and as you can see we left the park that day with TWO Elmo balloons. One we bought for him and the other was given to him by Elmo himself. Sesame Place made an impression on all of us that day, because they had a wonderful Memorial Day parade filled with people from the armed forces. It was a very patriotic moment for reflection, and literally the park had something for everyone.

Quote of the day: Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. ~ Lowell

I would have to say today was a lost day. I do not even know where the day went. I began it with a Walk t-shirt issue. Weeks ago Peter and I selected a new color for the Walk t-shirt this year. We usually have white shirts, but this year we wanted something vibrant and different. Especially since we are having our $5,000 corporate sponsor on the back of the shirt. This is a first for us! We selected this wonderful honey orange color for the shirt and even altered our logo to work on this color, since our logo has a ton of orange in it, we did not want it to get lost on the shirt. However, when placing the order yesterday we learned that this honey color doesn't come in children's sizes. That was a big miss on the part of the manufacturer when we first placed a call to have sample colors sent to us weeks ago. So now we are left to start again to find another color palette that will work for us. I am less than happy about this given the amount of time and energy I have already placed into this honey orange t-shirt design. But I have no choice but to regroup and do it quickly with our t-shirt vendor.

Meanwhile here is an update on our totals as of today:

Funds Raised so Far: $41,306
Walk Teams in total have raised: $9,361
The on-line Raffle has generated: $1090

My good friend Mary Ann sent me a few photos today of spring in her neighborhood. Two of which absolutely intrigued me. There is something about this red geranium sitting on a bird bath that captures my attention. Red in a sea of green! It is striking!

I just love how the reds pop out and I also love the Great Blue Heron metal statue in the garden. In all reality when I think of our winter, it is hard to believe that anything is growing, is green, and has returned to life. I suppose it gives us all hope.

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Mattie in Summary

Diagnosis timetable: July 23, 2008 - tumor in the right humerus; August 1, 2008 - tumor in the left humerus; August 6, 2008 - tumors in the right femur and left radius. On August 6, Mattie was officially diagnosed with Multifocal Synchronous Osteosarcoma.
Tumor Resection and Limb salvage surgeries (repiphysis): on October 20, 2008 and November 12, 2008.
Percentage of Necrosis: 60% in right humerus; 80% in left humerus; 100% in left radius; 2% in right femur.
Chemo began on August 8, 2008: High Dose Methotrexate, Cisplatin, Doxorubicin; Ifosfamide, and Etoposide were added to the treatment protocol on December 1, 2008; MTP-PE was added to the treatment protocol on January 12, 2009.
Chest CT scans post surgery: December 5, 2008 – four 3mm lung lesions; January 8, 2009 – CT scans reveal no change in the lung lesions; March 19, 2009 - CT scans reveal slight changes in two of the lesions. With potential increases in size of up to 1-2 mm per lesion. On June 5, 2009, CT scans at 1.5mm cuts (so very refined cuts) revealed that Mattie's lung lesions doubled in size since January. The four lesions are now 8-9mm in size, indicating that Chemotherapy is not working.
Median Sternotomy: June 15th, 2009, removed 9 lesions, four in the left lung and five in the right lung. We do know that two of the lesions had calcified indicating bone material was present. This confirms that the bone cancer has metastasized to the lungs and that Mattie's chemotherapy was not effective at fighting the cancer in his lungs.
PET Scan: There appears to be a possible variant (i.e something abnormal) in the lower left femur, but as of now it is too small to determine what it really is. Normally, one would biopsy this, but the location is difficult as it involves the growth plate, and with lung surgery imminent, and Mattie just being off of chemo, the advice we're getting is to wait and watch, and to see what it looks like during the next scan.
Echocardiogram: Mattie has a reduced LVEF (Left Ventricle Ejection Fraction), which in layman terms means that his heart is not pumping with its normal level of pressure. Although it is not at a dangerous level, the doctors do want to monitor it with a follow-up echo in a few months to determine if this is a temporary impairment or if long term damage has been done.

H.R. 2109: CHILDHOOD CANCER SURVIVORSHIP RESEACH AND QUALITY OF LIFE ACT OF 2009

A bill, sponsored by Rep. Speier has been introduced in the House on April 27, 2009, to improve and enhance research and programs on childhood cancer survivorship. For more information, please visit the link below
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2109

This video highlights some advocacy efforts to provide more effective drugs for childhood cancer patients and access to better care for survivors. This link also provides information on how to contact your representatives to urge them to support this bill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQY8vxO_quU

Mattie's Situation

Mattie Had Bone Cancer
Mattie had a bone cancer called Osteosarcoma. The diagnosis was: multi-focal, synchronous osteosarcoma. He had four tumors in his extremities: the upper portions of the right and left Humerus, which is the bone that connects the shoulder to the two lower arm bones (the radius and ulna), the lower (distal) left radius (right near the wrist) and the lower (distal) right femur (just above the knee joint). Although commonly found in adults, this type of bone cancer is very, very rare when found in six year old children.

Mattie started chemotherapy on Thursday, August 7, 2008, consisting of several five week cycles containing five types of drugs (Doxorubicin, Cisplatin, high dose Methotrexate, Ifosfamide and Etopicide). After the second cycle Mattie underwent a surgery (Oct. 20) to remove the tumor in his right humerus, and then a second surgery (Nov. 12) to remove the other three tumors. Mattie had three prostheses (both arms and the leg) that use the Repiphysis technology. We also tried an experimental drug called L-MTP-PE in the effort to give Mattie the best fighting chance of survival. It's a shame it wasn't enough.

All of our Family and Friends have done so many wonderful and amazing things for us to help Mattie. For that we are forever grateful. We want you all to know that we cannot thank you enough for these things and your selfless acts of kindness. We cannot adequately express how much your love, caring and devoted attention to Mattie meant to us. God Bless each and every one of you.

We made a deal from the beginning with Mattie to never lie to him about his situation, and we talked him through each step of the way. Mattie knew he had "some bad bugs" in some of his bones, and he knew that the drugs he was given were to kill the bugs, and the surgeries were meant to remove the bugs from his body. Mattie even requested from Dr. Bob Henshaw (who performed the surgery) "to let me keep a bone" once the procedures were over. Mattie did get several pictures of the procedures which he always thought were really neat.

This kind of statement only furthered our immense respect and astonishment that we had for Mattie and his emotional intellect, intelligence, and maturity. It was amazing that a six year-old could so quickly rationalize and embrace a situation and keep such a strong and positive attitude going, when his parents were a pair of emotional and physical trainwrecks. The irony is that Mattie gave us our strength to go on at a time when we should have been giving him his strength to fight.

Mattie's life during the 13 months of fighting cancer was not a normal one, even though we did whatever was humanly possible to make it as normal as possible. Fortunately, we have good friends who helped us get to the right doctors and to the program at the Lombardi Center in what everyone says was record-breaking time, who embraced us and helped us with what was unquestionably the greatest challenge of our lives. Of course, without our family and good friends, life would be a whole lot tougher than it is right now, so for those of you who are reading this, all we can say is Thank You and We Love You. God Bless.

Mattie's Blog... When Tragedy Inspires Hope

Mattie Miracle 15th Anniversary Video

Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

April 30, 2015

Thursday, April 30, 2015

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

Mattie Miracle 2022 Walk Was a $114,500 Success!!

Mattie Miracle 2021 Walk was a $125,000 success!

MATTIE MIRACLE VIRTUAL WALK WAS AN $110,000 SUCCESS!

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Mattie Miracle 10th Anniversary Walk was an $119,000 success!

9th Annual Walk & Family Festival!

Mattie Miracle 8th Annual Walk & Family Festival was an $88,000 Success!!!

2016 Walk & Family Festival --- an $85,000 success

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Mattie Passed Away

Mattie in Summary

Washington Post Article on The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation!!

Washington Post Article on Reach the Day and Mattie's Blog

H.R. 2109: CHILDHOOD CANCER SURVIVORSHIP RESEACH AND QUALITY OF LIFE ACT OF 2009

Mattie's Channel 9 Story

Mattie's Situation

Mattie's Medical Team

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