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

December 4, 2018

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 -- Mattie died 481 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2002. Mattie was 8 months old and doing one of his favorite things.... walking. Mattie did not like sitting still and he most definitely wasn't into the whole crawling thing. He wanted to go from sitting to walking ASAP. I love this photo because it captures Mattie in motion, with the reindeer on his back side. 


Quote of the day: Though chronic pain affects 1 in 5 children, parents are seldom taught how to help manage symptoms. ~ Rachael Coakley


This week a friend of mine sent me the article below entitled, Your child and chronic pain: How to 'dial down' the agony. The article is written by a pediatric pain psychologist, and she writes about pain, not only from her professional perspective, but from having been in an ICU with her own son. She recounts for her reader, how harrowing it was to see her son in agony and how she felt helpless in managing the issue, not to mention felt overwhelmed by the hospital, its staff, and all its noises. I am quite certain that long term exposure to living in a hospital has traumatic consequences. We experienced it first hand through Mattie's eyes and our own. 

What captures my attention in this article is the author points out that helping a child cope with long term pain is truly a family effort. That parents must be treated as part of the care team and as such be trained on ways they can effectively help their child cope. She goes on to points out that when parents are thrust into such an chaotic medical environment, our own levels of stress, anxiety, and frustration set in. Sometimes making it difficult to know how to best help the child. The second noteworthy thing she mentioned was the importance of interdisciplinary care. Meaning in Mattie Miracle lingo..... IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE MEDICINE. In fact, managing pain has a real psychological component to it. In Mattie's case all the coping skills possible wouldn't have helped contain his pain given the nature of his cancer, but providing him psychosocial outlets were vital and I noticed they did impact his mood as well as our own. 

I realize the article was written about childhood pain, but as an adult, I too manage various chronic forms of pain. I can't say that I could manage them without medicine, but I would concur that my outlook and attitude are vital. They are what force me to get up and work, even when I don't physically feel up to it. When I am engaged with the world and physically active, I still have a migraine and muscular pains radiating from my hip, but working is a positive distraction. Just like the author mentions that kids with chronic pain need routines. Such as school. Routines are vital to all our health, regardless of age. 

No matter what kind of day Mattie was having while on treatment, we tried to do some things consistently. Because at the end of the day the activities we choose to do, give us control over our lives. Control that pain could easily take away from us if we let it. 


Your child and chronic pain: How to ‘dial down’ the agony:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/your-child-and-chronic-pain-how-to-dial-down-the-agony/2018/11/09/7d141a02-e12c-11e8-b759-3d88a5ce9e19_story.html?utm_term=.60a0e7652ba8


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