Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Tuesday, September 15, 2015 -- Mattie died 314 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken on January 12, 2009. We took Mattie to New York City for a second time to visit Memorial Sloan Kettering. In addition to standard therapy, Mattie also went on a trial for an experimental immunotherapy agent. In order to participate in the trial, he had to first start it in New York, where the primary investigator was located. While we were at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the child life staff gave Mattie cardboard boxes to create with on his arrival. They knew to do this since Linda, Mattie's child life specialist at Georgetown clued them in. I have to admit the child life staff at Memorial Sloan Kettering were perplexed with Mattie and had no idea how he could transform boxes into structures. Here was Mattie's final project..... a beautiful blue plane. I want you to know that this plane took a taxi ride back to our hotel too and it took great convincing to get Mattie to leave the plane in NYC, rather than to transport it home to DC. Not that I did not love the plane, but our home had already been transformed into warehouse from all the things we had been accumulating since Mattie got sick. 


Quote of the day: An important way to cope with grief is having an outlet, be it interpersonal, be it artistic, that will allow you to not have to contain your grief, but will give you an opportunity to express it, to externalize it to some degree.

~ R. Benyamin Cirlin

It is DAY 2 (out of 12) for the WTOP Click-For-A-Cause Contest! Thank you for helping us get 198 votes yesterday!!! We STILL need your help..... please share this posting with friends and family and encourage them to vote and share this post. Winning this contest takes a Grass Roots effort, and we thank you for your support!

My cousin today posted this message on her Facebook page in Italian and sent it to our relatives in Italy! We are hoping to make voting global. 

To vote, go to: http://wtop.com/contests/click-for-a-cause-voting/?char=m

Recently Peter and several other cancer dads created and have been taking part in a GOLD challenge. First the challenge involved painting their big toes GOLD, in honor of childhood cancer awareness month. However, as the challenge has been going on, they have upped their game... painting all their nails, one dad painted his whole body, another wore a gold colored kilt, another dad set up all his DeWalt power tools behind him (which are boldly yellow) and now we have the King of the Facts! These dads are amazing examples of what parents do for their children to bring awareness to a vital cause.

To see the Gone Gold for Childhood Cancer video, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDJAwtFn1lk

This is the last tie for Orange Tie Week (Tuesday of last week to today!). Today's tie has fish and seaweed on it! Clearly Tim has a sense of humor and of course this would have been a tie Mattie would have LOVED!