Saturday, August 1, 2015

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2003. Mattie was 15 months old and as you can see was sitting on the couch with a book in hand. Mattie enjoyed looking at books and loved hearing stories told to him. The book he was holding was one of his favorites..... Goodnight Moon! In fact at one time Peter and I knew the words to the story by heart, because we read it so often upon request! 

Quote of the day: There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others. We need to understand our environment and our relationship to it. We need to fulfill certain inner hungers: the need for happiness, for peace of mind -- for wisdom. ~ Swami Kriyananda

Peter and I packed up our exhibit booth at the IPOS/APOS World Congress of Psycho-Oncology today. We had this booth on display since Wednesday and when not in sessions or interacting with attendees, we were at the booth. We spoke to countless numbers of people from all over the Country, and some from around the World.

It is ironic because I really had the mindset that our National Psychosocial Standards of Care applied only to the United States. But after speaking to several psychologists from around the World, who live in comparable countries, they are excited by our standards because they wish to apply them to their own cancer sites and feel they will serve as excellent guidelines.  

This is our third year in a row hosting an exhibit booth at a national conference. Sometimes we have to encourage folks to take a free t-shirt at our table. This year, that wasn't an issue. I brought about 80 t-shirts with us to the event and I returned with ZERO! A psychologist from Nigeria fell in love with our shirts and she took about seven of them home to her family members. But this was a trend. The international folks loved the shirts! This is what caught me by surprise. I expected the International folks would not be interested in our shirts because this would be one more thing to pack in a suitcase! I was wrong!!!! Of course (which was NO surprise) the chocolate that we brought and had inside the colorful sand pails on our table, went like hot cakes. We brought many POUNDS of chocolate with us and you couldn't believe how people went through it! In fact, we inspired the other exhibitors around us to go out an buy candy for their tables! Candy is the NUMBER #1 draw and attraction of any exhibitor table! People come to talk to you because they want YOUR CANDY! After they take your candy, they feel compelled to talk! Naturally some people come to talk, just to talk. But for others candy is an excellent incentive! We met many wonderful people while standing by our table and this is always one of the highlights of coming to a national conference....... learning about what others do around the country to help children and their families with cancer!